by Barry Parker
SWEDISH INTERVENTION
The Holy Roman Empire and its Catholic allies were soon in for a surprise. The young king of Sweden, Gustav Adolphus, began to worry that the war was getting too close to Sweden; he feared a move against Sweden and decided to act before it happened. Adolphus had become king of Sweden in 1611 at the age of seventeen. He was young, but he had been prepared well by his father, and he was a natural leader. Over the years he had taught himself the latest techniques in artillery, military strategy, logistics, and organization. Furthermore, he already had considerable experience leading troops to war; at the age of thirty-one he had led Sweden to war against Poland, and won.
His troops were some of the best in the world. Gustav drilled them continuously, and he was a strong disciplinarian. He wanted perfection, or close to it; in particular, he wanted maximum gunfire from his troops at all times. In his effort to achieve this goal he reduced the weight of muskets so that they were easier to handle, and he introduced paper cartridges and containers of premeasured powder. Loading had to be done as quickly as possible. His military could fire with high accuracy at speeds three times faster than most of his rivals. In addition, he made important tactical changes. His troops charged the enemy from the front and sides, firing as they went. Then they would quickly retreat and reload for another assault. He emphasized attack over defense, and mobility was also emphasized. And finally, unlike most armies, his army was cross-trained. Infantry and cannon gunners could easily exchange places, and everyone was taught to ride horses, so a cavalry man could easily be replaced. He made so many advances, in fact, that he is frequently referred to as the father of modern warfare.13
So when he attacked northern Germany in 1630 he was well-prepared, and he easily overcame the opposing Catholic army. Unlike most armies that plundered and looted the countries they occupied, Gustav did not allow his troops to plunder and loot. Forging forward, Adolphus met the army of the Count of Tilly in 1631, and he quickly overcame it. Then he continued across Germany to the Rhine, where he stopped in preparation for an invasion of the Holy Roman Empire. The following year he invaded Bavaria again, quickly overcoming his Catholic opponents.
In 1632 he had a coalition army of about twenty thousand men. General Wallenstein, whom he had fought earlier, led a Catholic army that had almost the same number of men. They approached one another at Lützen, Germany. Adolphus and his troops bedded down and prepared to attack at dawn, but when they woke, the entire area was immersed in a thick log. The delay helped Wallenstein get his cavalry into position, and it caused several problems for Adolphus. The fog didn't lift, and Adolphus finally decided to attack under the cover of fog. But when he attacked, confusion reigned; it was difficult to distinguish the enemy, and Gustav and a small contingent of mounted soldiers soon lost contact with the main branch of their cavalry. The confusion that followed led to a tremendous slaughter on both sides, and during it, Adolphus was hit by a bullet. His horse panicked and began running wildly through the fog until Adolphus finally fell off. As he lay on the ground several enemy soldiers who were probably ignorant of who he was shot him again. In the end the Swedes won, but their leader was now dead, and this was a tremendous blow to them.
Interestingly, Wallenstein survived the war but was assassinated shortly after it. And the overall war was still not finished. It continued for another sixteen years, coming to an end in 1648. Adolphus was hailed as a hero in Sweden, and he has been revered ever since. He is now referred to as Adolphus the Great.
A NEW ERA OF DISCOVERY: ISAAC NEWTON
Few advances in physics occurred in Europe during the Thirty Years’ war, and England was still weak, so little happened there. But soon one of the greatest periods of scientific productivity would come, and one man, Isaac Newton, was mainly responsible for it. Newton had almost no interest in the military, and he did not work directly on any military project, but his discoveries had a tremendous effect on weapons and warfare, and because of Newton's insights, humankind for the first time had a fundamental understanding of the physics behind them.
Newton was born in January 1643 at Woolsthorpe Manor in England—the same year that Galileo died. His father was a relatively well-to-do farmer, but he died before Newton was born. Newton's mother remarried shortly after his birth and left him with his grandparents. Later, he attended boarding school in Grantham, and from age twelve to seventeen he attended Kings School in Grantham. When he graduated, his mother decided to make a farmer out of him, but it didn't work out. He had no interest in farming, and the master at Kings School finally persuaded her to let him attend Cambridge University.14
Isaac Newton.
In June 1661 he entered Trinity College at Cambridge to study mathematics, physics, astronomy, and optics. Not much is known about his years at Cambridge, but his outstanding ability came to the attention of one of his teachers, Isaac Barrow. In 1665 the bubonic plague struck; Newton had to return home. The year that he spent there is now considered to be one of the most important years in the history of physics. It was during that year that (according to legend) he saw an apple fall from a tree in his yard and began to wonder why it fell. The event soon led to his famous “law of gravitation”—one of the most important breakthroughs in physics. During the same year he is said to have invented calculus, but strangely, he kept it secret for many years. And in the meantime a slightly different form of calculus was discovered by Leibniz in Germany, and, as a result, there was considerable controversy later about who actually invented calculus.
Soon after returning to Cambridge he was appointed professor of mathematics, a position that he held for the rest of his life. And during his early years he continued to make fundamental discoveries, particularly in the field of light and optics, but also in relation to motion and dynamics. He presented some of his discoveries to scholars at Cambridge and was surprised that he was criticized quite severely—and Newton was not a man who could take criticism. He continued his experiments, and he continued to make important discoveries, but he filed them away and kept them to himself for years. Indeed, if it hadn't been for the astronomer Edmond Halley, he might have taken them to his grave.
In 1687 Halley and a friend, physicist Robert Hooke, were having an argument about the mathematical form of the law of gravity; they had ideas about it, but they were uncertain. Halley knew Newton, and he was sure that Newton could resolve the argument, so he went to him. And sure enough, Newton had the answer. He told Halley that he had proved mathematically that it was an inverse-square law, and he offered to show it to them. He searched for the calculation he had made, but he couldn't find it, so he promised to send it to Halley later. Halley received it a few days later and was amazed. He went back to Newton to discuss the results with him and was amazed even more that not only had Newton discovered the law of gravity, but he had made numerous other discoveries that he had never published. This eventually led to one of the most important books ever published in physics, called Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, or, as it's more commonly known, the Principia.
Contained within the Principia were the three basic laws of motion, now referred to as Newton's laws. The first law stated that a body will continue in a state of rest or motion in a straight line, unless acted upon by a force. At the time this seemed to defy common sense. It didn't seem possible that objects in uniform motion continued their motion indefinitely. But unless a force acted on them to change their motion, they did. Newton's second law was concerned with this force. It stated that an acceleration produced by a force acting on a body is directly proportional to the magnitude of the force, and inversely proportional to the mass of the object. This was a language that was completely foreign to most people of the time, but it soon made a lot of sense, and it told us what would happen to an object in uniform motion if a force were applied to it. We can abbreviate the second law in the formula a = F/m, where a is the acceleration resulting from a force (F) on a mass (m).
Newton's third law introduced a new con
cept called momentum; it is defined as mass × velocity (m × v). And the third law states that the total momentum of an isolated system of bodies remains constant. In short, this means that the total momentum before an interaction (for example, a crash) will always be equal to the total momentum after the interaction, assuming there are no outside influences.
It's easy to see that each of these three laws had a tremendous impact on war; they allowed for a better understanding of such things as the recoil of a gun, the impact of a bullet, and so on. But there was still the important question of how and why a bullet or cannon shell returned to Earth. Galileo had shed some light on it, but, for the most part, it was still a mystery. Newton solved this mystery with his law of gravity. It is as follows: every particle in the universe attracts every other particle of matter with the force that is personal to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. In mathematical terms this is F = m1m2/r2, where F is force, m1 and m2 are masses, and r is the distance between them.
Newton, of course, was not thinking of this equation in relation to weapons of war in any way, but he was interested in applying it to the moon to correctly predict its period around the earth. When he made the calculation it was close to what was observed, but not exact, and the reason was that the distance to the moon was not known accurately at the time, and neither was the acceleration of gravity.
These laws by themselves would have made Newton one of the greatest scientists of all time, but they aren't the only advances he made. He also made fundamental discoveries in relation to light and optics. In relation to light, for example, he showed that white light was composed of light of all colors, and a beam of white light could be dispersed into a beam of all colors using a prism. He also discovered the laws of reflection and refraction. And he invented the first reflecting telescope (most large telescopes now use reflectors). All his discoveries in light and optics were detailed in his book Opticks, which was published in 1730.
In addition, Newton made important contributions to the understanding of sound, heat, tides, and fluid dynamics, and he also made several important discoveries in mathematics in addition to calculus. But perhaps most important, he was the first to formulate and use the scientific or experimental method. In particular, he published the four rules of scientific reasoning. And although Galileo had used the experimental method years earlier, it was Newton who perfected it. He also emphasized the role that theory and experiment played together.
What effect did his discoveries have on war? Some of them had a direct effect, but, for the most part, his laws of motion and gravity had an indirect effect in that they allowed gunners and weapons makers to understand what was going on when a gun was fired, and how the bullet or shell fell to the earth. On the other hand, his optical experiments soon made one of the most critical tools of war possible, namely binoculars. And certainly, his invention of calculus played a very large role.
INTRODUCTION
The Industrial Revolution in England began in 1762 and lasted to 1840. It was one of the most important periods in human history—primarily because of its profound influence on the daily life of average people. In particular, the standard of living was increased, but there were still major problems with conditions.
The era was significant for the military. It changed the way armies were equipped and how they fought, and it introduced mass production, which was something new in the civilized world. Guns, ammunition, and other weapons of war could now be easily produced by the thousands. And of particular importance was that weapons manufacture was standardized so that parts were interchangeable and could easily be replaced.
What role did physics, and science in general, play in this revolution? As it turns out, there is some controversy. There's no doubt that the developments spurred interest in physics; and new branches of physics actually arose as a result. But how much did the earlier breakthroughs of Newton, and the breakthroughs that occurred during the Industrial Revolution, relate to physics? The problem here is the definition of “science,” and more particularly “physics.” Many argue that “pure physics” made little contribution. And indeed it is true that the major contributions came from applied physics and technology, as most of the advances were actually engineering advances.
Nevertheless, there were dramatic changes in society—mostly for the good, although for the lower class, smog from the new blast furnaces (which used coal as fuel) was something new and unhealthy. And there's no doubt that the Industrial Revolution had a huge effect on war and warfare.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
For the most part the Industrial Revolution took place mainly in England, at least in the early years, but looking back in history it's easy to see that its origins were in France. However, it didn't play out fully in France until it was well underway in England.
The origins of the Industrial Revolution can be traced to Louis XIV of France, who ruled from 1643 to 1715. He had the longest reign of any French king—seventy-four years. He became king when he was four years old, but the Queen Mother and her assistant wielded power until he was twenty-one. When he took over, England's navy ruled the seas, and the French army was no match for the highly trained English army. Louis, who was convinced that his power was given to him by God and that he was accountable to no one except God, decided to make France the strongest country in Europe, and to do it he would have to build up its army and its navy. Furthermore, if these were to be first rate, they would have to have first-rate weapons, strategies, and tactics. And he was determined to make this come to pass. Strangely, though, he had no interest in “leading” his armies into war as Adolphus of Sweden had done, and he cared little about new developments in technology, or science in general. His major interest was dancing and partying at his many palaces (he built the immensely plush palace at Versailles). Fortunately, he had a very competent finance minister named John Baptiste Colbert, and he put Colbert to work upgrading the army and navy. And indeed, Colbert did an excellent job; within a few years France had one of the strongest navies and best-equipped armies in Europe. His navy went from 18 outdated ships to 190 ships equipped with all the modern devices known, and his army increased from a few thousand poorly trained men to 400,000 highly trained soldiers, equipped with the best cannons and muskets available at the time.1
With all of this available to him, Louis decided he was going to expand the borders of France—in essence, he wanted to conquer Europe and defeat the English in the process. He thought of war as a “sporting event,” with himself as commander. He began by attacking Belgium and Holland with his large army. He easily overcame them, but soon other countries saw him as an egotistical aggressor and began to form alliances against him, and, as a result, his losses began to pile up. One of his major losses was the War of Spanish Succession, which started in 1701 and continued to 1714; by the time it ended, France was almost bankrupt. Indeed, throughout much of his long reign he was at war, and by the time he died in 1715 he was highly unpopular.2
Even though he was unsuccessful in his expansionist ambitions, he did make the important contribution of starting the Industrial Revolution. It all began with gunpowder. He wanted gunpowder produced fast and efficiently, and the methods that were in use at the time were too slow, so he directed his ministers to build a huge workshop in Paris for producing gunpowder. In it he set up what was probably the first “assembly line” for mass production. Production underwent several steps, with groups of people involved in each step, where each group performed only one operation before passing the product on to the next group. It was a new tactic, and it worked wonderfully. Soon he had warehouses full of gunpowder.
From here he turned to the production of guns—both cannons and muskets—and he set up an assembly line for them. He mass-produced uniforms in another assembly line. From here the new revolution could have spread and made France the greatest industrial nation on earth—but it didn't. By the end of Louis's reign France was nearly bankrupt.
As a result, the major part of the Industrial Revolution took place in England.
THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION
The revolution in England, which began about 1760, was fueled mostly by three technical advances: James Watt's steam engine, John Wilkinson's new techniques for iron production, and new techniques in the textile industry. Several developments in the chemical industry, along with the development of new machine tools, were also helpful.3
With the advent of steam engines, efficiency increased dramatically. But for the early part of the revolution, industry still relied on waterpower, wind, and horses for driving small engines.
The first successful steam engine came in 1712. It was invented by Thomas Newcomen, based on experiments performed thirty years earlier by Christiaan Huygens and his assistant, Papin. It consisted of a piston and cylinder, with the end of the cylinder above the piston open to the atmosphere. Steam was introduced in the region below the piston. This steam was condensed by a jet of cold water, producing a partial vacuum. The pressure difference between the vacuum and the atmospheric pressure on the other side of the piston caused the piston to move downward in the cylinder. It was attached to a rocking beam that in turn was attached to a water pump.