by Benjamin Darnellenjamin
Martlesham, UK / Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2023. . Pp. xiv, 279.
Illus., maps, appends., notes, biblio., index. $125.00 / £85.00. ISBN: 1837650543
Louis XIV, Financing the State, and Naval Warfare
A deeply serious work that uses financial data to throw considerable and valuable light on Louis XIV’s France, naval warfare and, more generally, ideas of state and military modernisation. The price may mean that the archivally-strong book does not receive the attention it deserves, which would be a great pity for this study, based essentially on Darnell’s doctorate, greatly takes the subject forward. Paralleling Guy Rowlands’ crucial work on Louis XIV’s armies, Darnell demonstrates the basis for his conclusions about the centrality of finance in understanding the operational realities of the navy, not least issues in the efficiency and accountability of expenditure.
Darnell shows that the management of the system was as significant as its structure. He takes forward the Parrott/Rowlands thesis about the reliance of military activity on private entrepreneurship and shows how in the case of the navy also the Crown’s control over this practice both diminished and proved inadequate during periods of lengthy and arduous conflict. In turn, Louis XIV’s increasing inability to operate the ‘fisco-financier system’ (236) contributed to a growing crisis that helped England/Britain to success. This is an account that further greatly qualifies notions of absolutism, military revolution and modernisation. The three authors are collectively showing the value of a deep dive into finances and logistics for an understanding of capability, strategy and operations.
There are also more specific consequences for naval policy. As Darnell shows, the public-private partnership hindered both fleet action and privateering. However, the partnership also made it easier to pursue the exploitation of the trans-oceanic capabilities of the Spanish empire. Darnell argues that the navy became insolvent in cash-flow terms in 1707-9, hitting naval procurement and leading to an operational paralysis that contributed to a wider sense of crisis in the French war effort in 1709. A new generation of trésoriers thereafter provided some fiscal heft and therefore institutional and operational space, but the navy was much diminished. An important work.
Our Reviewer: Jeremy Black, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Exeter, is also a Senior Fellow of the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the author of an impressive number of works in history and international affairs, frequently demonstrating unique interactions and trends among events, including The Great War and the Making of the Modern World, Combined Operations: A Global History of Amphibious and Airborne Warfare, and The War of 1812 in the Age of Napoleon. He has previously reviewed The Return of Marco Polo's World: War, Strategy, and American Interests in the Twenty-first Century, Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939, War: How Conflict Shaped Us, King of the World, Stalin’s War, Underground Asia, The Eternal City: A History of Rome in Maps, The Atlas of Boston History, Time in Maps, Bitter Peleliu, The Boundless Sea, On a Knife Edge. How Germany Lost the First World War, Meat Grinder: The Battles for the Rzhev Salient, Military History for the Modern Strategist, Tempest: The Royal Navy and the Age of Revolutions, Firepower: How Weapons Shaped Warfare, and Sing As We Go: Britain Between the Wars.
---///---
Note: Maritime Power and the Power of Money in Louis XIV’s France is also available in e-editions.
StrategyPage reviews are published in cooperation with The New York Military Affairs Symposium
www.nymas.org