"Population, Military Personnel and Ships 1715-1815" Topic

As part of my dissertation research I have been using resources to collect data on military capabilities of states in the 1715-1815 era.

Here are three graphs with information of population in 1000s, military personnel in 1000s and number of 50gun and above ships.Please bear in mind that this is a work in progress, and do not reproduce without my prior permission.

To put it mildly England goes LOLz on the rest of the world when it comes to navy.

link

With Respect
KTravlos

Add some research on China. No, they didn't have 50-gun ships to be sure, but for most of recent history, they had a significantly larger navy than any European country. (You did ref the world in your note above, not just Europe or the West.)

China is not there for several reasons

1) I do not read old mandarin so I cannot access their historical archives to get the numbers

2) None of my sources had info on china

3) The "world" is made up of states that shared political-military relations and where part of specific regime netwroks. In Buzan and Liddle's words that are part of the same political-military system. China traded with them, might even have some level of diplomatic relations, and fought some of them (the Dutch in the 17th century, the Spanish around then as well) but China was not part of that specific system, or really interacted that much in a political-military way with them in the 1715-1815 era. China was part of another political-military system.

4) There is a reason why I put the 50gun threshold. Even if the Chinese had tens of thousands of junks (even the big ones) does it matter if 5 3rd rates could sink a 20 of them (a bad analogy but not that wrong, if you look at the First Opium War). For good or bad this is the era of the start of the divergence between European and non-European military capability.

5) Bad use of the word "world". Ascribe it to my eurocentricism (I do intend to do China at some point, when I have a bigger pay-check and RAs). It is terrible that I cannot edit the post now to delete the word "world"

Oddly, that looks a lot like the US Army's material planning: enough to engage any two competitors at roughly equal numbers, simultaneously.

Though I suppose the other half of the equation is 'how many divisions does he have'…

Part of me wants to say that there is something in anglo-saxon countries and overarming. In a way it is a smart strategy, because it is cheaper to built an army from a scratch rather then a good navy. So let us say that you have issues with both the UK and France (and most states in this era had issues with both). To fight one would require to build the infrastructure for an army, and the army. To fight the other you need to build the infrastructure for a navy, and a navy. I would argue (and partly would be willing to look it up) that the first is easier than the second. Furthermore if you are a continental state, you can use your army to defend against other opponents, while your navy has less alternative uses (to a point). It might make more sense to accommodate the side it would cost you more to resist even if they are more problematic for you.

The Royal Navy's strategic concept up until 1905 was essentially to have enough to defeat any combination of another two countries.

HMS Dreadnought changed the equation as basically everyone had to start from scratch.

Even so the shipbuilding capacity of the Uk was sufficient for them to still retain a strategic advantage over any single opponent up to and beyond the Washington Treaty.

Can you make up another chart comparing the size of the military with the population? I'm curious to see if there are any constants among the countries.

I don't think correlating population to navy size gets you anything.

Based on the excellent book "The Command of the Ocean" by NAM Rodgers (which is well footnoted) navy size and the ability to maintain one is more directly proportional to economic wealth and the size of a country's maritime trade for maintaining that wealth. Navies are expensive, technologically advanced, and require special skills to man and maintain.

For example, Britain had both. France had money but limited maritime interests. As a result, France built large fleets but could not man or maintain them.

China back then is a non starter because they had no maritime trade. They were inwardly focused. It will be interesting to see China in the future as they are now seeking economic power and will want a merchant trade and navy to project it.

I agree. I primarily use Navies as a proxy for "technical" ability. All three measures will be combined to create something equivalent to the Correlates of War Capability measure for the 1715-1815 era. They use energy consumption per capita, and steel-coal production as proxies for industrialization, technical capability. Since that kind of info is not available before 1815, I decided to go with large rate ships.

I will create a graph of population/standing army personnel ratio for a friend who studies militarization. It will be available on my professional website.

Again let me stress that this is a project in its infancy and a lot of the data is estimates rather then hard numbers.

If you take into consideration that for a long time the US relied on a rival for protection of its maritime trade (UK) it would not be weird if the Chinese follow a similar path.

Thank you for your interest.
KTravlos

I am sorry, but I think your whole premise is ridiculous. Part of me wants to be sympathetic to anyone struggling to jump through all the hoops of getting a Ph.D., but there are just too many variables about strategic position, national outlook, and perceived threats. I am not going to take time to look up the specific years, but in the early 1880's the U.S. had a weaker navy than that of Chile, and at some point, either before World War I or World War II, the U.S. Army was smaller than that of Romania. Clearly neither case reflected relative population, wealth, or industrial capacity. And, in the 17th century the Netherlands could and did face down Spain, France and Britain based on its wealth derived from dominating the maritime carrying trade, even though a small country with few natural resources. Indeed, it survived a simultaneous war with France and Britain (Third Anglo-Dutch War). Its decline as a naval power par excellence set in largely because an altered international political scene meant that it could rely on alliance with Great Britain, a much cheaper alternative than maintaining its own fleet fit to take on all comers. Its losses of overseas empire (prior to World War II) came mostly as a result of being overrun on land by Revolutionary France, forcing the Dutch into a state of war against Britain, which then proceeded to pick off the Cape Colony (South Africa) and Ceylon, and to temporarily take Surinam and the Dutch East Indies.

Thank you for your point

1) That is why measures are composite measures as opposed to just population,or just military personnel, or just industrial capacity etc etc. Are the measures perfect? Nope. Are they better then anecdotal evidence for most questions? Yes. Are they better then vague words like "power"? Hell yeah. Are there exceptions to every rule? Yes. Do they negate the rule? In a hard Popperian world yes, in a probabilistic world nope (you may be a Popperian, but epistimological views are not facts).

2) Measures are determined by questions. If my goal was to explain every possible variation then yes, this would be ridiculous. My goal is to explain the average or the mean on a very narrow question. It is up to others to justify why a specific case does not fit the mean.

3) The Fact that the Dutch made a conscious choice to disarm in the 18th century is not that weird. Most mid to small size European states did the same between 1715 and 1795 as Duffy points out. This is a "puzzle". It does not negate the fact that they could had made a larger army and navy if they wanted, that such a eventuality was not considered impossible by prospective allies and foes. Why they did not tells us something about the international milieu they worked in. but also about how future milieus were different. Part of political science is to see how facts and perceptions interact. To do that you need the facts.

4)The Dutch also survived a lot of times due to allies (against Spain in the 16th-17th century) or the limited objectives of opponents (First Anglo-Dutch war).

4) Ultimately if you really put the time down most of these factors can be operationalised in some form (again not perfect measures, but better then nothing). The problem is building logical stories about their interaction and keeping models parsimonious enough that they can actually tell something about reality as opposed to just replicating reality.

Again if my project was an explanation of Dutch or American foreign policy in a specific era, then your better off with the diplomatic historian, pundit or traditionalist. But my project is more interested in the international system within which those foreign policies were created and how it affected them (and no, it is not the only explanatory variable). It is the one I am interested in.

With Respect
KTravlos

To KTravlos:

I have no interest in starting up an ongoing argument. You seem perfectly sincere, but I feel certain we could never agree, based on the fact that you are a political scientist and I am an historian. I would not have chosen that field if I did not think it the superior viewpoint, and I presume the same could be said of you. Furthermore, I was for many years a curator in maritime history museums, which involves questions quite different from the theoretical (frequently arbitrary) constructs which modern academics seem to favor.

The two examples I made off the top of my head were just that, rather dramatic examples that do not fit what you propose. I could cite at least three more which are less striking, and I am sure I could find more examples with research. But I doubt that anything I might say would alter your basic premise, and this forum is not for the purpose of academic debate. If you wish to communicate with me privately, my e-mail address is attilathepun47@localnet.com.

Thanks Attila!