402 Ch. 1 1 • Dynastic Rivalries and Politics
Recruitment practices differed in the various European states. The Prus
sian army’s military recruitment system was the most comprehensive.
Each of its regiments was assigned a district from which to draw recruits.
In France, military recruitment was placed directly under the control of
the state bureaucracy, which relieved officers of the responsibility for fill
ing a quota of recruits. In Russia, each commune (tnir) had to provide at
least one soldier. Throughout Europe, certain categories of the population
were exempt from service, including prosperous farmers, the servants of
French nobles, Russian merchants, and, in some countries, men with fam
ilies. England was alone among the major powers in not having a standing
army, at least in principle.
Yet mercenaries still sometimes provided the bulk of eighteenth-century
European armies, the notable exception being France. Military service pro
vided those who joined up with regular meals, shelter, and adventure. Swiss
guards served the French royal family as well as the popes in Rome, and
their countrymen fought with a variety of armies. The Dutch army included
a brigade of Scottish highlanders. Military service could still provide
respectability. Criminals and other men with something unpleasant in their
past often turned up as soldiers. Non-military officials, servants, wives, chil
dren, and prostitutes accompanied armies: “We are a marching brothel,”
assessed one British commander.
Desertion remained widespread, affecting up to 35 percent of an army,
despite threats of mutilation for those caught leaving. During the Seven
Years’ War, about 62,000 soldiers deserted the Habsburg army, 70,000 left
the army of France behind, and 80,000 Russian soldiers disappeared into the
night. Tightly packed formations served to discourage desertions, as they
were intended to do, because soldiers were under more constant control.
Harsh, even brutal, discipline in army camps complemented that in the field.
Frederick the Great was not alone in believing that “[the soldier] must be
more afraid of his officers than of the dangers to which he is exposed.”
Although strategies for supplying troops improved during the century, armies
rarely moved far from their supply camps. The lack of commitment and unre
liability of mercenary and levied troops often helped end fighting.
Military technology had evolved slowly since the invention of gunpow
der. In the seventeenth century, the soldier wielding a bayonet, a musket
topped with a razor-sharp knife, had pushed the pike man, a foot soldier
armed with only a spear-like weapon, off the battlefield. Other significant
changes in warfare in the seventeenth century included improved flintlock
muskets, with cartridges and iron ramrods that permitted riflemen to fire
three times per minute and increased their range. Handheld firearms
became practical weapons for the first time. Artillery pieces were also lighter
and more mobile, with somewhat greater range. The training of artillery offi
cers improved.
Soldiers in the eighteenth century were now far better trained and disci
plined than in the previous century; armies were far larger than ever