Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Introduction
- Part 1 Fighting for the nation?
- 1 Does nationalist sentiment increase fighting efficacy?
- 2 Mercenary, citizen, victim
- Part 2 The varieties of nationalist experience
- Part 3 Empires and nation-states
- Part 4 Empty shells, changed conditions
- Index
- References
2 - Mercenary, citizen, victim
The rise and fall of conscription in the West
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Introduction
- Part 1 Fighting for the nation?
- 1 Does nationalist sentiment increase fighting efficacy?
- 2 Mercenary, citizen, victim
- Part 2 The varieties of nationalist experience
- Part 3 Empires and nation-states
- Part 4 Empty shells, changed conditions
- Index
- References
Summary
States take risks when they arm troops and ask them to fight, kill, and die on their behalf. Most obviously, soldiers hold weapons that they could turn on their employers. There is a long literature on when and why soldiers mount coups, but that is not my concern here. Instead, I want to examine how states incur moral, political, and financial obligations when they hire, draft, or recruit troops to fight wars and how those obligations affect states' capacities to fight wars.
My focus is restricted to “Western” polities. Rulers in medieval and early modern Europe relied primarily upon mercenaries and upon aristocrats and their armed retainers. Rulers were limited in the length and intensity of commitment they could demand from either sort of fighter. The relationship between soldier and state was fundamentally transformed when and where states were able to impose conscription or convince citizens to volunteer. Beginning with the revolutionary United States and France, states offered draftees and volunteers a growing array of political and social rights. The transformation of subjects into citizens gave states access to armies of unprecedented size, endurance, and commitment, and made possible the bloodbaths of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from the Napoleonic Wars to the American Civil War, to the world wars (Rhodes 1988). The first part of this chapter is devoted to explaining the process and consequences of the transition from mercenary to civilian armies.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Nationalism and War , pp. 44 - 70Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013
References
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