Civilians in Warfare 1500-1789
Civilians have always suffered in warfare, and Early Modern Europe was no exception. But they contributed to war as well, through their taxes, their victuals and their bodies. Jeremy Black explores the relationship between civilian and military.
The crippled, gun-toting protagonist, dependent on begging, in Harlequin Returning from the Wars (c.1742), a painting by the mid-eighteenth century Florentine artist Giovanni Ferretti, was as realistic an image of war as the triumphal celebrations, mingling thanks to God and man, that frequently greeted victory. Even if the vagaries of the harvest, the unending struggle to safeguard crops and flocks and the incessant threat of accidents or disease were the pre-eminent uncertainties of life for most people, nonetheless the state impacted on everyday life, never more so than through war, both in its capability for destruction, and in the burden of supporting it with money, manpower and materiel.
Across Early Modern Europe, governments were preoccupied with maintaining and supplying armies, and financing them was a major problem for both state and subject.
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