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This is a major new approach to the military revolution and the relationship between warfare and the power of the state in early modern Europe. Whereas previous accounts have emphasised the growth of state-run armies during this period, David Parrott argues instead that the delegation of military responsibility to sophisticated and extensive networks of private enterprise reached unprecedented levels. This included not only the hiring of troops but their equipping, the supply of food and munitions, and the financing of their operations. The book reveals the extraordinary prevalence and capability of private networks of commanders, suppliers, merchants and financiers who managed the conduct of war on land and at sea, challenging the traditional assumption that reliance on mercenaries and the private sector results in corrupt and inefficient military force. In so doing, the book provides essential historical context to contemporary debates about the role of the private sector in warfare.… (more)
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As a point of contrast Parrott often turns to his previous work on how the French attempted to make war without native-born officers who were personally invested in their units, and who could depend on their investment being recognized by the state. This made for haphazard success until the regime of Louis XIV embraced full-scale venality of the operational command structure in his army which recognized the costs imposed on the nobility (whose wealth could not otherwise be accessed) while paying back the nobility in the coin that really mattered to them; recognition and social influence. The last section of this study is largely dedicated to examining social contracts such as these, as though the contractor generals of the Thirty Years War who raised armies as a speculative profit-making venture were gone,it doesn't mean that the military entrepreneur had disappeared with the Peace of Westphalia; it just means that the cut of their coat had changed.
While this should probably not be the first book one reads on the subject I found it very illuminating, particularly since as it appears that the era of the mass army as the expression of a nation-in-arms has ended and the military contractor has again become a viable instrument of state.