"Urban Hubs in Europe’s Fiscal-Military System, 1530-1870"
This paper will present findings from the ‘European Fiscal Military System c.1530-1870’ (FMSystem) project funded by the European Research Council (2018-25). FMSystem transforms the conventional narrative of the violent rise of the European states system by revealing how belligerent competition also involved cooperation. States were not autarkic actors engaged in an inevitable Darwinian struggle for the ‘survival of the fittest’. Their emergence was co-dependent and entailed developing ways to obtain war-making resources from beyond their jurisdictions. This is the paradox of European history. Competition was only possible through cooperation with allies, neutrals and even enemies, because states have rarely obtained all they needed for warfare from their own populations, while governments have generally been unable to prevent their own subjects from aiding other powers.
The paper will summarise the project’s methodology and key findings. It will identify the variety of war-making resources and assess how far their availability was dependent on accessing external expertise and sources of supply. The standard historical perspective will be decentred by shifting the analytical focus away from political capitals, and from the sovereign state more broadly, and instead examining how fiscal-military transactions ran through urban ‘hubs’ functioning as centres of expertise and resource accumulation and production. It will also examine the variety of state, semi-state, and non-state actors involved, as well as explain the emergence, growth, and eventual demise of what can be labelled Europe’s fiscal military system between about 1530 and around 1870.
It will conclude by arguing that the era of fully nationalised, modern warfare has proved historically comparatively brief, giving way around 1990 to a postmodern, increasingly post-national war making which is more dependent on private military and security companies and in which armed non-state actors have assumed considerable importance. Contemporary conditions do not represent a ‘return of the mercenary’ or any other allegedly pre-modern forms, but nonetheless, an examination of the significance of early modern extra-territorial resource mobilisation provides a valuable long-term perspective and can help us pose better questions about the present.