Foreign military labour in Europe’s transition to modernity

ABSTRACT

Foreign soldiers were a major element in virtually all European armies between the early sixteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. The extent and duration of their use clearly indicates they were far more than a temporary expedient adopted solely until states acquired the capacity to organize forces from their own inhabitants. Rather than being a hindrance to state formation, they were integral to that process. Likewise, the formation of European states and an international system based on indivisible sovereignty was not purely competitive: it also entailed cooperation. The transfer of foreign military labour is an important example of this and is central to what can be labelled the European Fiscal-Military System, which assisted the emergence of a sovereign state order and was dismantled as that order consolidated in the later nineteenth century. Wilson’s article articulates ‘foreign soldiers’ as an alternative to the problematic term ‘mercenaries’, and examines their motives, explaining how and why foreign soldiers were recruited by early modern European states.as well as assessing the scale of their employment. The article concludes that the de-legitimation of foreign military labour was connected to fashioning the modern ideals of the citizen-in-arms as part of a more general process of nationalizing war-making.

KEYWORDS:

• foreign soldiers
• foreign fighters
• mercenaries
• Fiscal–Military System

Acknowledgements

This article draws on initial research supported by the University of Oxford’s John Fell Fund and a research grant from All Souls College. Its completion in this form was part of the ‘European Fiscal-Military System c.1530–1870’ project which is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No.787504).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The classic statement is the widely cited article by Kiernan, “Foreign Mercenaries and Absolute Monarchy,” 66–86. Other examples include Howard, War in European History, 17–38; Peter Singer, Corporate Warriors, 23–9.

2. Edmond-Louis-Alexis Dubois de Crancé, Dec. 1789, quoted in Tozzi, Nationalizing France’s Army, 3. See also Bell, The First Total War; Clausewitz, On War, 591.

3. Förster, et al. eds., Rückkehr der Condottieri?; Jäger and Kümmel, eds., Private Military and Security Companies; Carmola, Private Security Contractors and New Wars; McFate, The Modern Mercenary; Mandel, Armies without States.

4. Eckert, Outsourcing War, 160–1.

5. Bruneau, Patriots for Profit; 114–16; Axelroyd, Mercenaries, 337–48.

6. For instance, Pitney Jr. and Levin, Private Anti-Piracy Navies.

7. Ferejohn and McCall Rosenbluth, Forged through Fire; Avant and Sigelmann, “Private Security and Democracy,” 230–65; Grofe, “Human Rights and Private Military Companies,” 241–58 at 253; Singer, Corporate Warriors, 191–205.

8. Brewer, The Sinews of Power. Examples of the impact of this concept include Glete, War and the State; Graham and Walsh, eds., The British Fiscal Military States; Storrs, ed., The Fiscal-Military State; Godsey, The Sinews of Habsburg Power; Torres Sánchez, ed., War, State and Development.

9. Knight and Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet; Harding and Solbes Ferri, eds., The Contractor State and its Implications; Fynn-Paul, ed., War, Entrepreneurs, and the State; Bowen and Gonzáles Encisco, eds., Mobilising Resources for War; Conway and Torres Sánchez, eds., The Spending of States; Torres Sánchez, Military Entrepreneurs and the Spanish Contractor State.

10. This argument is developed further in Wilson, “The European Fiscal-Military System.”

11. These categories are defined in Wilson, “The Exchange of War-Making Resources.”

12. Examples include Fitzsimmons, Private Security Companies, 221; Kinsey, Corporate Soldiers, 19; Andreoloulos and Brandle, “Revisiting the Role of Private Military and Security Companies,” 1–20; Singer, Corporate Warriors, 19–20.

13. International Committee of the Red Cross commentary on the condemnation of mercenaries in Article 47, Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Convention, 1977: Sandoz et al., The Geneva Conventions, 577.

14. Calazans, Private Military and Security Companies, 7–21; Varin, Mercenaries, 9–18; Burchett and Roebuck, The Whores of War.

15. Spencer, Romantic Narratives in International Politics, 139–60; Percy, Mercenaries.

16. Wilson, “Defining Military Culture”, 11–41.

17. Burmester, “The Recruitment and Use of Mercenaries,” 37–56; Maaß, Der Söldner und seine kriegsvölkerrechtliche Rechtsstellung, 35–170.

18. Hampson, “Mercenaries,” 3–38 at 5–6; Tonkin, State Control, 28–35; Ortiz, “The Private Military Company,” 55–68 (61).

19. Tozzi, Nationalizing France’s Army, 8–9.

20. Stradling, The Spanish Monarchy and Irish Mercenaries; Mesa, The Irish in the Spanish Armies.

21. Arielli, From Byron to Bin Laden, 8–9.

22. Hippler, Citizens, Soldiers and National Armies; Forrest, Conscripts and Deserters; Stoker, Schneid and Blainton, eds., Conscription in the Napoleonic Era.

23. Johnson, Just War Tradition.

24. Steinhoff, “Ethics and Mercenaries,” 137–51 at 140.

25. Drutschmann, “Informal Regulation,” 443–56.

26. Berkovich, Motivation in War; Arielli, From Byron, 8, 69–95.

27. Malet, Foreign Fighters, 14–32, 215–17; Arielli and Collins, eds., Transnational Soldiers.

28. Werther, “Back to the Future,” 321–9 at 323; Redlich, The German Military Enterpriser.

29. Parrott, The Business of War; Wilson, “The German ‘Soldier Trade,’” 757–92.

30. Tzoref-Ashkenazi, German Soldiers; Prinz, Das Württembergische Kapregiment.

31. These are discussed further in Wilson, “Mercenary Contracts as Fiscal-Military Instruments.”

32. Eyer, Die Schweizer Regimenter in Neapel.

33. These in fact came from six different German principalities, though Hessen-Kassel supplied the majority of the 37,000 who served. Gräf, Hedwig and Wenz-Haubfleisch, eds., Die “Hessians” im Amerikanischen Unabhängigkeitskrieg; Huck, Soldaten gegen Nordamerika.

34. Hartmann, Geld als Instrument europäischer Machtpolitik.

35. Bräker, The Life Story and Real Adventures.

36. For examples of how the demands of agriculture and family structures affected recruitments see Casparis, “The Swiss Mercenary System.”

37. See the table in Wilson, “Warfare Under the Old Regime 1648–1792,” 69–95 (80).

38. Calculated from the monthly returns in Staatsarchiv Darmstadt, E8 B180/1.

39. Jany, Geschichte der Preussischen Armee, II 666–7; Luh, Ancien Regime Warfare, 48–51.

40. Clausewitz, On War, 587; Alexandra, “Private Military and Security Companies,” 21–37 (24).

41. Malet, Foreign Fighters, 52–3, 197, 203. This is disputed by Arielli, From Byron, 151–78.

42. Eyer, Die Schweizer Regimenter, 419–82.

43. Wilson, “The Politics of Military Recruitment,” 536–68.

44. Lindström and Norrhem, Flattering Alliances.

45. Wood, The King’s Army, 41; Glete, War and the State, 34–5.

46. Rowlands, “Foreign Service,” 141–65, Rapport, Nationality and Citizenship, 49–50; Corvisier, L”Armée française, I 728, 774–5, II 962.

47. Loriga, “Soldaten in Piemont,” 64–87 (65).

48. Jany, Preussische Armee, I 711, II 77, 240–4, III 55–6, 184–7, 372, 435–41; Fann, “Foreigners in the Prussian Army,” 76–84.

49. Gelder, Das ostindische Abenteuer. Soldiers were also prominent amongst the Germans serving the Portuguese in India: Malekandathil, The Germans.

50. Mallett and Shaw, The Italian Wars.

51. Schilling, Konfessionalisierung und Staatsinteressen; Boys, London’s News Press.

52. Arielli, From Byron, 3–19, 36, 215 represents the majority view in this respect.

53. Examples in Murdoch and Grosjean, Alexander Leslie.

54. Glozier and Onnekink, eds., War, Religion and Service.

55. Sherwig, Guineas and Gunpowder; Gould, Mercenaries; Dempsey, Napoleon’s Mercenaries; Demet, “We are Accustomed to do our Duty.”

56. Suter, Innerschweizerisches Militär-Unternehmertum, 105–10.

57. Bolzens, “Vorteile des Gebrauchs von Schweizer Soldaten,” 267–78.

58. Avant, “From Mercenary to Citizen Armies,” 41–72.

59. Percy, Mercenaries, 99–166.

60. Blanning, The French Revolutionary Wars.

61. Moran and Waldron, eds., The People in Arms; Forrest, The Legacy of the French Revolutionary Wars.

62. Corvisier ed., Histoire militaire de la France, II 307; Gill, With Eagles to Glory. My thanks to Frederick Schneid for additional information.

63. Archives de Etat de Genève (AEG), France 28 and 29.

64. Hughes, Conquer or Die!

65. AEG France 32 Liquidation après Juillet 1830.

66. Berkely, Italy in the Making, III 353–68; Embree, Radetzky’s Marches, 205–35.

67. Amersfoort, “The Dutch Army in Transition,” 447–77; and Rovinello, “The Draft and Draftees in Italy,” 479–518.

68. For instance, see Alvarez, The Pope’s Soldiers, 80–252.

69. Köster, Militär und Eisenbahn; Mitchell, The Great Train Race; Wolmar, Engines of War.

70. Johnson, True to their Salt, 392.

71. Windrow, Our Friends Beneath the Sands; Porch, The French Foreign Legion; Echenberg, Colonial Conscripts; Anon., Les Troupes de Marine.

72. Moor, “The Recruitment of Indonesian Soldiers,” 53–69; Kessel, “West African Soldiers.”

73. Heathcote, The Military in British India.

74. Smith, Mercenaries and Mandarins; Wilson, The Ever-Victorious Army.

75. Inglis, The Opium War; English, John Company’s Last War.

76. Gotthard, Der liebe und werthe Fried; Abbenhuis, An Age of Neutrals.

77. Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates and Sovereigns, 78–9.

78. Lemnitzer, Power, Law and the End of Privateering.

79. Amersfoort, “The End of Enterprise”; Bueno, Italiani al servizio di Spagna, 40.

80. Bayley, Mercenaries for the Crimea.

81. St. Clair, That Greece Might still be Free; Brett, The British Auxiliary Legion.

82. Coulombe, The Pope’s Legion; Duchesne, L’expédition des volontaires belges au Mexique.

83. Viotti, Garibaldi; Carteny, La Legione Ungherese.

Additional information

Funding

This research was part of the ‘European Fiscal-Military System c.1530–1870’ project which is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No.787504).

Notes on contributors

Peter H. Wilson

Peter H. Wilson is Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of All Souls College and Principal Investigator of a five-year research project on the ‘European Fiscal-Military System 1530–1870’ funded by the European Research Council 2018–23. He worked previously at the universities of Hull, Newcastle and Sunderland, and has been a visiting fellow at the University of Münster in Germany. His books include The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe’s History (Penguin/Harvard University Press, 2016), published in Italian (2018) with Chinese and Spanish translations in preparation, as well as Europe’s Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War (2009) which won the Society for Military History’s Distinguished Book Award, and has been translated into Polish, German and Spanish, with Chinese and Macedonian translations forthcoming. His latest book, Lützen, was published in 2018 by Oxford University Press.