Kelly DeVries, "The Lack of a Western European Military Response to the Ottoman Invasions of Eastern Europe from Nicopolis (1396) to Mohács (1526)," Journal of Military History 63/3: 539-560.
On 25 September 1396 an allied army of western and central European Christians were soundly defeated by the Ottoman Turks at the battle of Nicopolis. From then until after the battle of Mahács, fought in 1526, there was no concerted or unified effort by western European armies to attempt to stop the Ottoman Turkish invasions of eastern and central Europe. This essay examines the reasons from this lack of a response. Couched in the language of Pius II at the conference of Mantua, held in 1459, Dr. DeVries concludes, first, that the western European Christian powers were too busy fighting other Christians, either in international or civil wars, second, that the western European realms were too fightened by the Turks to go against them, and third, that the Hungarians were too successful in their wars against the Turks, which allowed western leaders to believe that there was no need for a crusade against the Ottomans.
Susan Rose, "Islam Versus Christendom: The Naval Dimension, 1000-1600," Journal of Military History 63/3: 561-578.
This essay points out that while the religious divide between Islamic and Christian nations bordering on the Mediterranean did have some effect on the incidence of naval warfare in this period, economic and political struggles between co-religionists were frequently as important. The major players in maritime terms-Venice, Genoa, and Aragon-were often bitter rivals for control of trading routes and bases. The naval activities of the Moslem rulers of the Southern litoral of the Mediterranean are less well documented and thus may be underestimated in importance, but it is also clear that the rise of Ottoman sea power drastically altered the strategic situation by the beginning of the sixteenth century.
David Nicolle, "Medieval Warfare: The Unfriendly Interface," Journal of Military History 63/3: 579-600.
Medieval warfare served as a channel for ideas between cultures. The ideas involved were primarily, though not solely, military. Those on the receiving end of what appeared to be a superior military system might be expected to adopt aspects of the opposing military technology. Nevertheless, many superior militlary technologies and systems of organization were not copied. Failure to adopt such "best practice" could undermine political structures or belief systems. The military elite of a particular culture also often adopted some apparently superficial aspects of their enemy's culture as a mark of respect for a worthy opponent. At other times, it was a means of showing allegiance. Nevertheless, cultures were often unable to copy a victorious rival because they lacked some essential sociological or technological factor. Other examples can be cited when a civilization prolonged its survival by enthusiastically learning from its foes.
Two examples of Islamic or Mongol and Islamic influence upon medieval European military technology are the bascinet helmet and the coat-of-plates armour. Two comparable examples in weaponry are the composite bow and the sabre. Examples of influence flowing in the opposite direction are rarer, although there was such a flow from Christian to Islamic Iberia in the later medieval period. Where fortification is concerned, the so-called Bent Gate might be an example of a concept which originated in central Asia or further east before spreading westward. Costume can provide further examples of both the acceptance and the rejection of influence from "the other side." Military recruitment patterns did not lend themselves to outside influence though systems of military payment might prove a more fertile field, as can medieval marine technology.
This article concludes with an Appendix consisting of translated extracts from a Byzantine Greek, two medieval Arabic, a medieval Persian, and a medieval Spanish military treatise.
Harald Kleinschmidt, "Using the Gun: Manual Drill and the Proliferation of Portable Firearms, " Journal of Military History 63/3: 601-630.
Military drill has long been neglected as a field of historical inquiry, mainly because it has ranked among lower tactics and has been considered to be no more than a rather prefunctory derivative of arms tgechnology. But the abundance of drill manuals extant since the end of the sixteenth century display substantive changes which drill underwent b etween the later sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These changes suggest that drill does not only have a history of its own but also that the history of drill has something to say about military history at large. The possibilities of contextualizing drill manuals are explored in the essay with an emphasis on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
George Raudzens, "Military Revolution or Maritime Evolution? Military Superiorities or Transportation Advantages as Main Causes of European Colonial Conquests to 1788," Journal of Military History 63/3: 631-642.
Among the main causes of Europe's colonial conquests between 1492 and 1788 there is currently much support for military superiority. The invaders had "Military Revolution" advantages based on firearms technology. A few invaders could consistently defeat many defenders. But actual examples of such defeats are hard to find. Indigenes often defeated Europeans. A better case for a technology-driven advantage seems possible, instead, for a "Maritime Evolution" built around the Atlantic European sailing ships which gave the invaders a monopolyh over the transport of all people, goods, and services to and from their New World foundation colonies.
D. George Boyce, "From Assaye to the Assaye: Reflections on British Government, Force, and Moral Authority in India," Journal of Military History 63/3: 643-668.
The British conquest of India in the eighteenth century provoked the Duke of Wellington to analyse the role of force in upholding the authority of the Raj; he concluded that this was essential, but that it provided not only physical, but moral authority, for that force was the guarantor of order and good government. During the nineteenth century this was reinforced by the British experience in India and elsewhere in the empire, where military power was deemed essential to upholding the authority of the state, a view put most forcefully by the legal expert Sir James Fitzjames Stephens. This was tested by the action of Brigadier General Dyer in his stern response to a gathering to Amritsar in 1919, which occasioned an analysis of the connection between force and moral authority, which a British judge concluded in 1924 was essential, not only in India, but throughout the British empire.
N. A. M. Rodger, "Recent Books on the Royal Navy of the Eighteenth Century," Journal of Military History 63/3: 683-703.
A selective survey of books on British naval history in the period 1688 to 1815, published roughly since 1968.