Abstract
A blunt account of the brutalities of war in the early modern period, this well-written study offers little new to specialists, but bringing together the accounts of murder and plunder helps underline the acute strain caused by war and the harsh brutalities it gave rise to. The focus during the Thirty Years War shifts ably between soldiers and civilians, each under great pressure, and Martines incorporates into his story the relationship with state finance and logistics, a topic recently illuminated by David Parrott. Much of the book focuses on sieges. The pressure on Huguenot Sancerre when besieged by Royalists in 1572–3 during the French Wars of Religion led to the ejection of the poor, to cannibalism, and, eventually, to surrender on terms. The eating of human flesh was also seen in Augsburg in 1635. In turn, armies on the move are treated as cities, each with voracious needs.
Martines, a prominent historian of the Renaissance, presents the states as monstrous causes of cruelty, fielding armies they could not afford. He criticizes what he presents as a general academic failure to address the face of war in terms of the consequences for civilians and, instead, a tendency to concentrate on high politics, warlords, and the skill of generals. Unfortunately he is wrong. There is a mass of material on the treatment of civilians, not least, but not only, in the Thirty Years War and in Ireland at the hands of English troops, especially Cromwell’s Ironsides in 1649. Furthermore, this coverage continues into the eighteenth century, as with the discussion of the treatment of the brutal Camisards and the Scottish Highlanders. There is also extensive coverage of the situation in Eastern Europe.
This is not an easy book to review, as it is driven by a clear agenda. Possibly Martines could address the extent to which violence was endemic to society, rather than being simply a product of war, and, having done so, could also ask questions about differences between Christendom and other cultures. The enslavement of captives was common along the border between Christendom and Islam, but was not common within Christendom. Martines might also like to devote due weight to the many occasions on which civilians were not slaughtered. Cannibalism, for example, was rare and held up as both exceptional and a warning of what could happen. Indeed, there is a highly unbalanced character to this book.