The Modern State and Military Society in the Eighteenth Century

State Capacity and Economic Growth: Cautionary Tales From History

“…In early modern Russia, the central state had low fiscal capacity in monetary terms but fielded large armies of conscripts supported by the forced labour of serf auxiliaries to provide transport, repair roads, build camps, dig trenches, and position siege guns; in one case, coerced serf auxiliaries numbered 13,000 for an army of 35,000 soldiers (Davies, 2013, 202; Scott, 2009, 47–8). In eighteenth-century France, an estimated one-third of the army in time of war consisted of conscripted militias rather than paid soldiers (Kroener, 2000, 209). In eighteenth-century Prussia, Frederick William I expanded the army to encompass 4 per cent of the population, not by using fiscal capacity to pay them market wages but by coercively conscripting civilians and paying them much less than their civilian earnings (Kroener, 2000, 212–3).…”

“…In eighteenth-century France, an estimated one-third of the army in time of war consisted of conscripted militias rather than paid soldiers (Kroener, 2000, 209). In eighteenth-century Prussia, Frederick William I expanded the army to encompass 4 per cent of the population, not by using fiscal capacity to pay them market wages but by coercively conscripting civilians and paying them much less than their civilian earnings (Kroener, 2000, 212–3). In the mid-eighteenth century, the English Secretary at War contrasted the paid soldiers of the British Army with the ‘compulsive methods’ used by continental European armies, where a large proportion of soldiers were conscripts who received lower than market wages or no pay at all (Conway, 2014, 25; Scott, 2009, 47–8).…”