Book Review of The Resilience of the Spanish Monarchy, 1665-1700

Christopher Storrs. The Resilience of the Spanish Monarchy, 1665-1700. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-19-924637-3. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xv, 271. $155.00.

Historians have traditionally seen Habsburg Spain as a declining Great Power in the late seventeenth century.  Why?  In 1659, Philip IV of Spain (1621-1665) concluded the Peace of the Pyrenees with France, ending four decades of conflict, including the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) and Franco-Spanish War (1635-1659).  France had replaced Spain as the dominant power in Europe.  Six years later, after the death of Philip IV, the four-year-old Carlos II and a regency government reigned over the Spanish Empire.  Louis XIV of France launched the War of Devolution and invaded the Spanish Netherlands, Franche Comté, and Catalonia in 1667-1668.  Spanish military weakness resulted in the Spanish monarchy having to accept Portuguese independence after a twenty-eight year war in 1668.  France once again invaded the Spanish Netherlands and Franche Comté during the Dutch War (1672-1678), with Spain losing more territory in the Peace of Nijmegen. Spain then lost more land to France in the War of Reunions (1683-1684).  Spain continued to lose territory in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy during the Nine Years War (1688-1697).  Louis XIV of France and William III of the Maritime Powers were ready to carve up the perceived weak Spanish Empire in the Partition Treaties of 1698 and 1700.  The Spanish monarchy under the Habsburg Carlos II was a shadow of its former self.

Dr Christopher Storrs, a Reader in History at the University of Dundee in Scotland, takes issue with past discussions of the decline of Spain in the late seventeenth century.  Storrs is known for War, Diplomacy and the Rise of Savoy, 1690-1720 (1999) and numerous journal articles on Spanish foreign policy and military power during the reign of Carlos II, as well as the editor of The Fiscal-Military State in Eighteenth-Century Europe (2009).  In the study under review the author argues that “the Monarchy inherited by Carlos II in 1665 remained largely intact on his death in 1700, was still the largest of the European overseas empires, and was even growing” (p.7). Spain had lost some territory in the late seventeenth century, but these losses were small chunks of land. Storrs professes that the major loss of territory, especially parts of the Spanish Empire in Europe (the Low Countries and Italy) was the consequence of Bourbon Spain’s participation in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713/14).  He stresses that these losses came under the leadership of the Bourbon King of Spain, Philip V, the grandson of Louis XIV.

Storrs examines Spain and its empire in the later seventeenth century.  The author notes that revisionist historians have focused on Spanish politics, economics, and society during the last thirty years.  He believes that they have failed to examine the larger picture of Spain and its security commitments to empire.  Storrs, looking at the Spanish Empire, focusing mainly on Europe, explores the Spanish army, navy, finances, along with politics and government.  He shows that Carlos II and his ministers concentrated on maintaining the security of the Spanish Empire.  As a result, Spain joined anti-French coalitions to oppose the aggressive actions of Louis XIV.  Storrs argues that historians have underestimated the important role played by Spain in the Wars of Louis XIV.  He stresses that the Spanish Monarchy was the only power to simultaneously deploy forces to fight in Flanders, the Lower Rhine, Lombardy, and Catalonia.  Sometimes these forces were not successful.  But, with this military and naval commitment, Spain expected to play have a say in peace negotiations.  Storrs does note that the strain of war shaped Spanish politics and society towards the end of the seventeenth century.  Even so, the Spanish monarchy was successful in keeping the Spanish Empire in Europe and abroad largely intact.

This study is based on archival research in Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Storrs’ work is valuable for bringing to light the state of Spain’s army, navy, and finances during the reign of Carlos II.  Historians have ignored the role that Spain played in international relations during this era for too long.  This reviewer strongly recommends this work to students and scholars interested in early modern war and diplomacy, especially the Wars of Louis XIV.

Dr William Young
University of North Dakota
Grand Forks, North Dakota

Book Review of Admiral Sir John Norris and the British Naval Expeditions to the Baltic Sea, 1715-1727

David Denis Aldridge. Admiral Sir John Norris and the British Naval Expeditions to the Baltic Sea, 1715-1727. Lund, Sweden: Nordic Academic Press, 2009. ISBN 978-91-85509-31-7. Maps. Appendices. Bibliography. Notes. Pp. 381. $59.95.

Georg Ludwig, the Elector of Hanover, as the Protestant claimant, ascended to the British throne in 1714.  As such, King George I now had at his hands the power of the British fleet.  Britain had been one of the victorious powers in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713/14).  Hanover had participated in this conflict, but was engaged as an ally of Peter I of Russia and Frederick IV of Denmark against Charles XII of Sweden in the Great Northern War (1700-1721).  Could George I employ the British fleet to further his territorial aspirations in northern Germany?  Or, would the British parliament constrain the monarch from flexing British muscle in the Baltic?

Dr David Denis Aldridge, a former Lecturer in History at the University of Newcastle in England, addresses British naval operations, under the command of Admiral Sir John Norris, and Anglo-Hanoverian diplomacy concerning the Baltic Region during the critical last years of the Great Northern War.  The author explores the complex twists and turns of diplomatic and naval issues involving Britain, Hanover, the Dutch Republic, Denmark, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, and lesser powers from 1715 to 1721.  The author,  the former chairman of the Nordic History Group of the United Kingdom, is known for his published articles on British naval history and economic relations between Britain and the Baltic in the early modern period.

British and Hanoverian interests clashed at first.  British parliamentarian leaders were more concerned about the Jacobite threat and maintaining the status quo established at the Peace of Utrecht (1713).  King-Elector George I had as a primary concern the acquisition of an outlet to the sea for Hanover.  As Elector of Hanover, he, in alliance with Russia, Denmark, and Prussia, had obtained possession of the duchies of Bremen and Verden by 1715, and sought to keep these former Swedish possessions.  Hanover was at war against Sweden while Britain remained a neutral power.  George I sought to use the British fleet to further his Hanoverian aims but the British Parliament was reluctant to go along with his plans.  Consequently, the King-Elector maneuvered to have Admiral Norris command the neutral British fleet to “show the flag” and assist British merchant convoys against Swedish blockades and piracy, in their trade in the Baltic Region, in 1715 and 1716.

Meanwhile, the Russian tsar gathered a large army in the duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in northern Germany with plans to launch, in conjunction with Denmark and Anglo-Dutch naval support, an invasion of Skåne (Scania) in southern Sweden in 1716.  This invasion failed to materialize, but Russian troops remained in Denmark and northern Germany, making allies and neutrals, especially Denmark and Hanover, nervous over Russian intentions.

The Great Northern War was just one concern in British foreign policy.  The other was the growing threat of Spain in the Mediterranean.  To counter Spain, Britain negotiated alliances with France (1716), the Dutch Republic (1717), and Austria (1718).  Spanish attempts to take Sardinia (1717) and Sicily (1718) resulted in an allied victory over Spain in the War of the Quadruple Alliance (1718-1720).

By 1718 British and Hanoverian interests began to converge.  Britain sought to deter the growth of Russian power in the Baltic Region.  Britain feared a possible Russo-Swedish settlement and alliance in 1718 that did not materialize.  George I was looking for a northern peace settlement that would confirm Hanover’s possession of Bremen and Verden.  Meanwhile, a Swedish invasion of Norway resulted in the death of Charles XII.  Consequently, the changeover in government in Sweden allowed improved Anglo-Hanoverian relations with Sweden, leading to an alliance against Russia in 1719.  The British fleet, under Norris, stood fast in 1719 and did nothing beyond patrolling the Baltic in 1720 and 1721.  Aldridge sees Norris, as the King-Elector’s representative, and the British Baltic fleet as an important part of British diplomacy designed to isolate Russia and secure the Peace of Nystad (1721).

The study, a revised version of the author’s doctoral dissertation from 1971, was completed under the guidance of Ragnhild M. Hatton at the University of London. This valuable manuscript remained unpublished until the Swedish Society for Maritime History decided to make the study available in 2009.  Aldridge, using journals and archival sources in Britain, Sweden, Denmark, and Austria, greatly contributes to our knowledge of British involvement in the Great Northern War. The study joins the work of his mentor and others in bringing to light British diplomacy during the early Hanoverian era.  These works include Basil William’s Stanhope: A Study in Eighteenth-Century War and Diplomacy (1932), Hatton’s Diplomatic Relations Between Great Britain and the Dutch Republic, 1714-1721 (1950) and George I: Elector and King (1978), John J. Murray’s George I, the Baltic, and the Whig Split of 1717: A Study in Diplomacy and Propaganda (1969), and Derek McKay’s Allies of Convenience: Diplomatic Relations Between Great Britain and Austria, 1714-1719 (1986).  Recent studies to discuss the Great Northern War are Hatton’s Charles XII of Sweden (1968), Lindsey Hughes’ Russia in the Age of Peter the Great (1998), Robert I. Frost’s The Northern Wars: War, State and Society in Northeastern Europe, 1558-1721 (2000), and James R. Moulton’s Peter the Great and the Russian Military Campaigns during the Final Years of the Great Northern War, 1719-1721 (2005).

Dr William Young
University of North Dakota
Grand Forks, North Dakota

Book Review of Mazarin’s Quest: The Congress of Westphalia and the Coming of the Fronde

Paul Sonnino. Mazarin’s Quest: The Congress of Westphalia and the Coming of the Fronde. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-674-03182-1. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. vii, 307. $56.50.

Dr Paul Sonnino, Professor of History at the University of California at Santa Barbara, examines the diplomatic talks that led to ending the Thirty Years War in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.  The author is well-known as a leading scholar of French diplomatic history, and is the author of numerous journal articles and studies such as Louis XIV’s View of the Papacy, 1661-1667 (1966), Louis XIV and the Origins of the Dutch War (1988), and (as editor) The Reign of Louis XIV (1990).

In this study, Sonnino explores the diplomacy of Cardinal Jules Mazarin (Giulio Mazarini), who rose to prominence after the death of Cardinal Richelieu in 1642.  The Italian-born cardinal, in alliance with the Queen-Mother (Anne of Austria), took control of the French government and foreign policy during the minority of the young Louis XIV (1643-1661). Mazarin, in alliance with Sweden and the Dutch Republic, sought to achieve victory in the Thirty Years War against the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand III and Philip IV of Spain.  The author discusses military campaigns and many diplomatic moves that forced the Holy Roman Emperor to agree to French terms in the Peace of Westphalia.  It is interesting to note that Mazarin increased his demands as negotiations progressed.  In the end, the cardinal acquired the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, along with a large part of the province of Alsace for France in the Treaty of Münster.  France and Sweden became the guarantors of the overall peace settlement in the Holy Roman Empire.  Despite this success, Mazarin, ignoring his own diplomats and Dutch inputs, pushed the Spanish too far, seeking to gain territory in the Low Countries, and failed to obtain a peace settlement with Spain.  The Franco-Spanish conflict would continue for eleven more years until the Peace of the Pyrenees (1659).  Sonnino suggests that Mazarin’s failure to obtain a peace treaty with Spain contributed to the outbreak of the Fronde (1648-1653).

This study is based on a significant amount of research in numerous European archives.  Sonnino’s research is reflected in the ninety-five pages of notes, about thirty percent of the book.  The work joins several recent studies, including Derek Croxton’s Peacemaking in Early Modern Europe: Cardinal Mazarin and the Congress of Westphalia, 1643-1648 (1999) and David Parrott’s Richelieu’s Army: War, Government and Society in France, 1624-1642 (2001), that explore French military and diplomatic history in the later part of the Thirty Years War.  This reviewer recommends this book to students and scholars interested in the diplomatic and military history of Early Modern Europe.

Dr William Young
University of North Dakota
Grand Forks, North Dakota

Book Review of The Business of War: Military Enterprise and Military Revolution in Early Modern Europe

David Parrott. The Business of War: Military Enterprise and Military Revolution in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0-521-51483-5. Figures. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xvii, 429. $80.00.

Dr David Parrott, a Fellow and Lecturer at New College, University of Oxford, provides a revisionist study concerning private contractors or military enterprisers and their role in early modern warfare. He is known for articles on the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), the Military Revolution in Early Modern Europe, and his outstanding study Richelieu’s Army: War, Government and Society in France, 1624-1642 (2001).

Early modern historians have traditionally stressed the transition from rulers and warlords relying on military contractors and mercenaries in the fifteenth century to the establishment of state-recruited and state-administered standing armies in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This has been seen as part of the Military Revolution in early modern Europe. Parrott, however, challenges this accepted viewpoint.  He shows through meticulous research that rulers and warlords in western Europe continuously relied on military enterprisers (private contractors that organized and waged warfare) throughout the early modern era.  Military enterprisers played a major role in the recruitment, organization, and deployment of military forces.  Rulers and warlords, however, kept control of the military might to meet their ultimate aims and objectives.

Parrott breaks down this analytical study into two parts.  In the first part, the author examines the foundations and expansion of military enterprise.  He begins by looking at military resources for hire, including the Italian condottieri, Swiss infantry, as well as German Landsknechte and Reiters from 1450 to the end of the Habsburg-Valois Wars (1559).  The author then focuses on military contracting in the galley squadrons of the Mediterranean, the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598), Dutch Revolt (1568-1609), and the Long Turkish War (1593-1606), before concentrating on the Thirty Years War.  This long-lasting conflict, fought by numerous belligerents, over a large geographic area focused mainly on Germany, was the proving ground for the further development of military enterprise.  Parrott discusses the military enterprising of Bernhard von Saxe-Weimar, Albrecht von Wallenstein, and others.  The author clearly shows that there was no single model for the organization of military might.  He proves that there was no inevitable development towards a state-run, state-controlled army during the Thirty Years War.  States, by themselves, lacked the financial resources and organization to create a large army and sustain it in the field.

In the second part of this study, Parrott explores the operations of military contractors at war.  He shows, contrary to what many historians believe, that contracted armies were experienced and effective in the field.  They were the quality forces that were usually the focal point of one’s military capability.  The author goes on to show the importance and effectiveness of private contractors that equipped and supplied armies and navies in the early modern era.  Parrott professes that military enterprisers were usually highly motivated in wartime to receive rewards, including lands, titles, and money.

Parrott stresses the long-lasting influence of the military enterpriser.  The author disagrees with Fritz Redlich’s German Military Enterpriser and His Work Force (1964-65) and stresses the importance military enterprise past the Thirty Years War to the Wars of Louis XIV and beyond.  He calls for historians to examine more closely the role of military enterprisers in future studies.  Parrott believes: “The devolution of military organization and control into the hands of private contractors was hugely more diverse, effective and adaptable as a means to organize and deploy military force than previous historical accounts have indicated.  Far from being a marginal and transient phenomenon in the history of European warfare, it was a lasting and successful set of mechanisms which, in various relations with rulers and their authority, lay at the heart of war-waging for centuries” (p.308).

Dr William Young
University of North Dakota
Grand Forks, North Dakota

Book Review of Ideology and Foreign Policy in Early Modern Europe (1650-1750)

David Onnekink and Gijs Rommelse, editors. Ideology and Foreign Policy in Early Modern Europe (1650-1750). Politics and Culture in Europe, 1650-1750 series. Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2001. ISBN 978-1-4094-1913-6. Figures. Notes. Index. Pp. xiii, 320. $134.00.

Dr David Onnekink, an Assistant Professor of the Early Modern History of International Relations at the University of Utrecht, and Dr Gijs Rommelse, a Research Assistant at the Netherlands Institute of Military History in The Hague, have edited a selection of twelve essays written by international historians that stress the importance of ideology in the foreign policy of European states from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries.

Most historians believe that the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and Peace of the Pyrenees (1659) established the modern European State System.  The sovereign state was the dominant actor in this system, and, according to Onnekink and Rommelse, foreign policy, international relations, and warfare “seemed to be guided by interests of state, cynical and rational calculation” (p.2).  Early modern historians have taken the view that the major principle in foreign policy was the pursuit of dynastic and national interests.  Onnekink and Rommelse stress that historians over the last forty years have approached foreign policy through the realist perspective.  “International relations,” so write the editors, “were dominated by the theme that realists hold as an axiom: the quest for power, whether military or economic” (p.3).  They have downplayed the role of religion and ideology in their studies of foreign affairs from 1650 to 1750.

There are a wide variety of essays in this volume.  I will mention just a few here.  In his essay, Gijs Rommelse believes that mercantilist ideology was a crucial element in the political and economic rivalry between England and the United Provinces, resulting in three Anglo-Dutch wars (1652-1654, 1665-1667, and 1672-1674).  David Onnekink investigates the ideological issues concerning Dutch foreign policy that led to the French invasion of the United Provinces and the Orange Revolution in 1672.  Wout Troost examines William III’s views concerning the struggle to “restore and preserve liberty” (or the balance of power), and contain the French threat in the late seventeenth century.  Steve Pincus explores the ideological debate between the Whig continental commitment and Tory blue-water strategies in English foreign policy in the 1690s.  Stéphane Jettot looks at several English diplomats during the late seventeenth century and depicts the difficulties they had in separating royal and parliamentary interests in the pursuit of foreign policy.  Gary Evans examines how partisan politics, promoting Whig and Tory agendas, resulted in biased historical writings on English foreign policy to influence parliamentary debates and public opinion in the early eighteenth century.  Andrew C. Thompson writes on the concept of the balance of power in British foreign policy in the early eighteenth century.  Benedict Wagner-Rundell explores the difficulties that ambitious Poland-Lithuanian monarchs had in making and carrying out foreign policy when opposed by the nobility seeking to protect constitutional rights in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

These essays attempt to show that political and economic ideology played a role in foreign policy following the Peace of Westphalia.  They point out that this era saw the rise of new theories on political economy, the emergence of partisan ideology, the idea of a balance of power in Europe, a significant rise in the number of newspapers and pamphlets that influenced public opinion, and the continuing importance of religion in European conflicts.  The purpose of this study is to highlight some of the current research and ideas, challenge traditional historical viewpoints, and start a debate about the role of ideology in foreign policy.  Let the debate begin!

Dr William Young
University of North Dakota
Grand Forks, North Dakota

Book Review of The Road to Rocroi: Class, Culture and Command in the Spanish Army of Flanders, 1567-1659

Fernando González de León. The Road to Rocroi: Class, Culture and Command in the Spanish Army of Flanders, 1567-1659. History of Warfare series. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2009. ISBN 978-90-04-17082-7. Illustrations. Charts. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Pp. xvi, 406. $210.00.

The Spanish Army of Flanders, led by some of the best military officers, stood as Europe’s elite army in the late sixteenth century.  Dr Fernando González de León, Associate Professor of History at Springfield College in Massachusetts, examines the Army of Flanders during the Eighty Years War (1568-1648) and Franco-Spanish War (1635-1659).  The author explains the decline of the officer corps and high command of the Army of Flanders that led to demoralized and incompetent leadership with poor military results during the last two decades of this period.  He believes that long brewing problems with the Spanish officer corps, high command, and organizational weaknesses became evident in dramatic fashion against the French at the battle of Rocroi (1643).

González de León sees the history of the Army of Flanders as broken into two distinct parts during the Eighty Years War.  In the first part the author investigates the School of Alba from 1567 to 1621.    At the beginning of this era, the Duke of Alba established a military command in the Spanish Netherlands as well as a military system (or school). González de León discusses the staffing of the School of Alba, the internal structure and hierarchy of the Army of Flanders, issues of military discipline, as well as reforms involving the Spanish officer corps.  Alba established an effective chain of command, favored Spanish officers and the infantry, provided rigorous officer training, and gave promotions to senior ranks based on experience and merit.  González de León states that, “Alba’s sterling reputation as organizer and commander of the Army of Flanders, the first modern standing army, was considered the very pinnacle of military perfection and the main bulwark of Spanish power in Europe” (p.7).  The author, however, points out that abuses began to creep into the system under the command of the Duke of Parma, Ambrogio Spinola, and the Archdukes Albert and Isabella starting from the 1580s to the Twelve Year Truce (1609).  Even so, the Army of Flanders was open to tactical innovation and had success in the field.

In the second part of the study, González de León addresses the military reforms and policies of Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, from 1609 to 1659.  The renewal of war against the Dutch Republic in 1621 brought out the internal problems within the Army of Flanders.  Olivares saw the problems in the army as the lack of effective leadership.  As such, the Count-Duke initiated reforms in military training and military justice, as well as adopted new policies in appointing officers, including the appointment of inexperienced, high-ranking Spanish aristocrats to senior military positions, hoping that they would succeed as effective commanders.  Nevertheless, the author shows that these inexperienced Spanish officers weakened the high command, had little ability to command in the field, and held prejudices against other nationalities serving in command postitions in the multi-national Army of Flanders.  González de León believes that, “this army was highly divided among nations, ranks and factions and ultimately failed to adapt to many of the new trends in warfare known in historiography as the Military Revolution” (p.373).  This decline in combat effectiveness led to the disaster at the battle of Rocroi (1643).  He stresses that, despite the fall of Olivares in 1643, the Army of Flanders made few changes and produced a string of major defeats against the Dutch, and the French in the Franco-Spanish War (1635-1659).

The author provides an important study on the Spanish Army of Flanders that contributes to our knowledge of the Eighty Years War.  It adds to the recent literature on the conflict, including Geoffrey Parker’s The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567-1659 (1972), The Dutch Revolt (1977), and The Grand Strategy of Philip II (1998); I.A.A. Thompson’s War and Government in Habsburg Spain, 1560-1620 (1976); Jonathan I. Israel’s The Dutch Revolt and the Hispanic World, 1606-1661 (1982); Marco van der Hoeven’s (editor) Exercise of Arms: Warfare in the Netherlands, 1568-1648 (1997); and Paul Allen’s Philip III and the Pax Hispanica, 1598-1621 (2000).

Dr William Young
University of North Dakota
Grand Forks, North Dakota

Book Review of The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy against Russia, 1853-56

Andrew Lambert. The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy against Russia, 1853-56. Second edition. Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2011. ISBN 978-1-4094-1011-9. Figures. Tables. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xvi, 380. $104.95.

This highly praised study, originally published in 1990, has been reprinted in a second edition. The work has been hard to find for well over a decade.  Dr Andrew Lambert, Professor of Naval History in the Department of War Studies at King’s College at the University of London, is known for such studies as Battleships in Transition: The Creation of the Steam Battlefleet, 1815-1860 (1984), HMS Warrior 1860: Victoria’s Ironclad Deterrent (1987), The Last Sailing Battlefleet: Maintaining Naval Mastery, 1815-1850 (1991), Steam, Steel and Shellfire: The Steam Warship, 1815-1905 (1992), The War Correspondendents: The Crimean War  (with Stephen Badsey) (1994),  War at Sea in the Age of Sail (2000), and more recently The Challenge: Britain against America in the Naval War of 1812 (2012).  In this edition of The Crimean War Lambert provides a valuable twenty-nine page introduction that discusses recent developments in the historiography of the Crimean War.  Otherwise the author makes no changes to the original study except for part of the conclusion.

The focus of this study is on British grand strategy (the development and implementation of strategy within the context of national policy) in the so-called “Crimean War” against the Russian Empire in the 1850s.  Britain and Russia were the only two world powers from 1815 to 1854.  Even so, France was Britain’s main rival — with British blue-water naval strategy focused on France — in the years leading up to the Russian War.

Histories of the Crimean War have traditionally focused on the origins of the conflict in the Near East and Balkans, and the war against Russia in the Crimea and Black Sea Region.  Lambert discusses the Anglo-French rivalry before the conflict, the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war in 1853, and the creation of a “fragile” Anglo-French alliance that went to war against Russia in 1854.  The Crimean phase was seen as a limited war with Allied attacks on the southern periphery of the Russian Empire.  British objectives were to defend the Ottoman Empire and maintain the existing Balance of Power in Europe.  Moreover, London wanted to reduce the Russian naval threat to British interests in the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean.  At first, Napoleon III of France was willing to follow Britain’s lead.  In September 1854, an Allied expeditionary force invaded the Crimea, and soon began the siege of the main Russian naval base at Sevastopol.  In 1855, France massed a large army for action in the Crimea to attack southern Russia and win a decisive victory.  Britain, on the other hand, having a large fleet presence, but a small army in the region, preferred to stress naval strategy with attacks against peripheral targets.  French troop strength and British naval power achieved limited success in the 1855 military campaign.  Britain relied on steam-powered ships to control the Black Sea Region.  The Allies finally captured Sevastopol in September 1855.  The Allies, however, lacked the manpower to conquer the Crimean Peninsula and pursue the war into southern Russia.  Russia was bankrupt and incapable of winning the war.  Tsar Alexander II therefore agreed to Allied peace demands, and the Crimean War ended with the Peace of Paris in March 1856.

Lambert disagrees with this assessment of how the war ended.  He points out that the capture of Sevastopol, on the fringes of the Russian Empire, was not as important as historians would have one believe.  The author, taking in a larger view of the Russian War, depicts how the British fleet developed new tactics and conducted naval operations in the Baltic Sea in 1854 and 1855, that resulted in the destruction of Sweaborg.  British steam-powered warships dominated the Baltic Sea against obsolete Russian sailing ships.  Lambert describes how Britain built up a large naval force, the so-called “Great Armament,” for a full-scale attack on the major Russian naval base at Cronstadt in 1856.  The British Baltic Fleet for 1856 would consist of 240 naval vessels, including 24 battleships, 37 cruisers, 4 floating batteries, 120 gunboats, 50 mortar vessels, and 5 auxiliaries (p.343).  Lambert states that Palmerston’s adoption of the so-called Cronstadt Plan, “marked a shift from limited peripheral territorial seizures to an unlimited thrust at the centre of gravity of the Russian state — St Petersburg and the army that defended the city” (p.315).  The author stresses that the Tsar accepted the humiliating Peace of Paris in order to avoid a total catastrophe if the British naval force attacked and destroyed the Russian Baltic Fleet and Cronstadt, and then bombarded St Petersburg into submission.

Lambert’s argument concerning the major British naval buildup and planned attack on vital Russian targets in the Baltic to force Russia to end the war has become the accepted view of academic historians.  His research influenced David M. Goldfrank’s The Origins of the Crimean War (1994) who considers the Baltic situation in the road to war.  Basil Greenhill and Ann Giffard, The British Assault on Finland, 1854-1855: A Forgotten Naval War (1988), John D. Grainger, The First Pacific War: Britain and Russia, 1854-56 (2008), and Peter Duckers, The Crimean War at Sea: The Naval Campaigns against Russia, 1854-56 (2011)  have added to our view of the Russian War outside the Crimea.  All in all, this reviewer finds the publication of the second edition of this classic study a treat for students and scholars of the Russian War of 1853-1856.

Dr William Young
University of North Dakota
Grand Forks, North Dakota

Book Review of Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations

Howard Jones. Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations. The Littlefield History of the Civil War Era series. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-8078-3349-0. Illustrations. Notes. Historiographical Note. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xiv, 416. $32.00.

Most studies of the American Civil War (1861-1865) focus on political and military leaders, military campaigns, and battles.  Dr Howard Jones, University Research Professor at the University of Alabama, provides a diplomatic history of the American conflict that considers the foreign relations of the United States and Confederacy with the European Powers.  Previous works by Jones include To the Webster-Ashburton Treaty: A Study in Anglo-American Relations, 1783-1843 (1977),  Union in Peril: The Crisis over British Intervention in the Civil War (1992), Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom: The Union and Slavery in the Diplomacy of the Civil War (1999), and Crucible of Power: A History of American Foreign Relations to 1913 (2002).

In this study, Jones recounts the diplomatic events of the Civil War focusing on the issue of foreign intervention.  He first looks at foreign relations from the outbreak of the war in April 1861 through the autumn of 1862.  This was a period when the Palmerston Cabinet in London took the lead in declaring neutrality and recognizing the belligerent status of the South, and then considered mediation and possible diplomatic recognition of the Confederate States.  He clearly shows the danger of British intervention in the Trent Affair (1861) and the Intervention Debates of 1862.  Throughout this time the United States, using the threat of war, pursued its main goal of deterring Britain from diplomatically recognizing the South.  The author shows that, despite pressure from certain circles, especially over the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, Britain opted to avoid a war against the United States in support of the Confederacy.  London had to consider the Union threat to Canada and British commerce.  By the end of 1862 the Confederacy was losing hope of British diplomatic recognition of the South, as well as hope for an alliance with Britain against the North.

Confederate diplomacy slowly began to focus on Napoleon III and France.  Napoleon sympathized with the Southern cause.  He entertained the ideas of diplomatic recognition and an armistice.  The Emperor was open to Confederate proposals for an alliance, so long as it benefited French involvement in Mexican affairs and the pursuit of his dream to reestablish a French Empire in the New World.  “Napoleon,” writes Jones, “considered Confederate independence crucial to the military and commercial bastion he envisioned in the Western Hemisphere” (p.310).  The Lincoln administration was strongly against French interference in Mexican affairs.  Jones shows that French support for the Confederacy became shaky after the Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in July 1863.  Napoleon quickly abandoned the South after the United States threatened a war in Mexico in March 1864.

Blue and Gray Diplomacy is an outstanding study covering foreign relations between the Union, Confederacy, Britain, and France.  It replaces David P. Crook’s The North, the South, and the Powers, 1861-1865 (1974) as the best study of foreign relations regarding the Civil War.  Even so, the study can be supplemented by the recent publication of Wayne H. Bowen’s Spain and the American Civil War (2011).  This reviewer highly recommends Blue and Gray Diplomacy to students and scholars of the Civil War to gain an understanding of the diplomatic events that touched the course and outcome of the conflict, especially the fact that Britain and France highly considered intervention in favor of the South, and in the end, backed away from such action.

Dr William Young
University of North Dakota
Grand Forks, North Dakota

Book Review of Caution and Cooperation: The American Civil War in British-American Relations

Phillip E. Myers. Caution and Cooperation: The American Civil War in British-American Relations. New Studies in U.S. Foreign Relations series. Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-87338-945-7. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xi, 332. $55.00.

Originally posted in Civil War History (20 August 2012).

Dr Phillip E. Myers, Director of Administration at the Western Kentucky University Research Foundation, examines Anglo-American relations after the War of 1812 to the Treaty of Washington (1871).  The author focuses on Anglo-American relations during the American Civil War and puts it into the larger context of overall relations between the two states during the nineteenth century.

Myers argues against the traditional view that Britain and the United States had tense relations that could have easily resulted in foreign intervention or an Anglo-Union war during the American Civil War.  Instead, the author stresses that Britain and the United States employed caution and cooperation, rather than conflict, in their wartime relations.  Myers shows that both states had used caution and cooperation in their relations before the conflict that resolved border issues in the Rush-Bagot Agreement (1817), Convention of 1818, Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842), and Oregon Treaty of 1846.  He writes: “The four treaties showed that caution and cooperation were the leading British-American aims” (p.23).

After the outbreak of the American Civil War, Myers stresses that Britain and United States worked to avoid an Anglo-American conflict, and that neither side seriously wanted war against the other.  The North had its hands full with the war against the South.  Britain was more worried about Napoleon III and the French threat to the British Isles and the European Balance of Power.  Britain declared neutrality in the American conflict, resulting in British recognition of belligerent status for the South.  Tension was evident over British trade with the South and the Union blockade.  Myers stresses that the Trent Affair (1861), traditionally thought to be a crisis moment when Britain and the United States might to go war against one another, was less serious than previously believed.  Neither power wanted war.  Private diplomacy quickly brought the two states back to cooperative relations that avoided a crisis for the rest of the American conflict.  He points out that the Palmerston Cabinet opted for cooperation with the Union in the Intervention Debate of 1862, and relations continually improved for the duration of the war.  The author states that, “by the end of 1862 the British-American peace was stronger than at any time since the beginning of the Civiil War . . .” (p.139).

Myer’s argument contrasts sharply with previous historians, such as Howard Jones’ Union in Peril: The Crisis over British Intervention in the Civil War (1992), that stress tense Anglo-American relations and crisis moments between Britain and the United States that could have led to foreign intervention in the American Civil War.  Myers’ work is based on archival research in Britain, the United States, and Canada.  The study is valuable for depicting Anglo-American relations in a different light.  Is his thesis of Anglo-American caution and cooperation overstated?  This reviewer recommends this study for students and scholars to read and make up their own minds.

Dr William Young
University of North Dakota
Grand Forks, North Dakota

Italian and Habsburg-Valois Wars (1494-1559): A Bibliography

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS AND WARFARE IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES AND EARLY MODERN EUROPE

A Bibliography of Diplomatic and Military Studies

by William Young

 Chapter 3
Italian and Habsburg-Valois Wars (1494-1559)

Italian and Habsburg-Valois Wars (1494-1559): A Bibliography (pdf)