| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.4

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Europe: Early Modern and Modern

David Parrott. Richelieu's Army: War, Government and Society in France, 1624–1642. (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History.) New York: Cambridge University Press. 2001. Pp. xxiv, 599. $90.00.

This is the first major study of France's army during the ministry of Cardinal Richelieu amid the Thirty Years' War. David Parrott presents a major revisionist view of French military administration. First, the author argues that historians have overestimated the growth in size of French armies. While there was a modest increase in military expansion from 45,000 to 80,000, this was not the 125,000–150,000 traditionally estimated. Furthermore, Parrott argues that the French did not follow Dutch or Swedish military reforms connected with the "military revolution" but pursued more realistic Catholic-Habsburg models of strategic warfare. As a consequence, France did not emphasize well-drilled infantry and artillery at the expense of the cavalry, as advocated by Calvinist theorists. Moreover, the struggle with the Habsburgs forced the French to reverse their emphasis on one or two armies and to fight on multiple fronts, which cost considerably more. The larger scale of warfare meant that the French financial system could not afford the increased costs and had to shift the burden to aristocratic army officers, both in recruitment and to maintain units at tolerable strength. Consequently, the government did not dare to alienate the military elite through too careful supervision and control. Largely unprepared for the new scale of conflict, the government fought the war through desperate, makeshift, decentralized efforts. In the end, the cardinal narrowly avoided defeat in an overly ambitious war. . . .

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