Book Review of The Dutch Army and the Military Revolutions, 1588-1688

Olaf van Nimwegen. The Dutch Army and the Military Revolutions, 1588-1688. Translated by Andrew May. Warfare in History series. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1-84383-575-2. Illustrations. Maps. Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xx, 577. $130.00.

Dr Olaf van Nimwegen, an Affiliated Researcher in International and Political History at the Research Institute for History and Culture at the University of Utrecht, is quickly making a name for himself in Dutch military history in the early modern era.  He is the author of De Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden als grote mogendheid [The Republic of the United Netherlands as a Great Power] (2004) which examines the role of the Dutch Republic in the European states system from 1713 to 1756.  Now he gives us an important study of the Dutch army from the late sixteenth to the late seventeenth centuries.  This work on the Dutch army was originally published in the Dutch language as “Deser landen crijchsvolck”: Het Staatse leger en de militaire revoluties 1588-1688 in 2006.

In this study Nimwegen argues that the Dutch army is paramount to all discussions on the so-called Military Revolution concerning tactical, strategic, and organizational changes during Early Modern Europe.  His work examines the changes in tactics and organization of the Dutch army over a century.  The author stresses that the Dutch army underwent two military revolutions from 1588 to 1688.  As such, he breaks up his work into two parts that contain both chronological and thematic discussions. 

The first part looks at the Dutch military during its struggle for independence from Spain in the late sixteenth century to the end of the Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648).  Nimwegen examines the organization of the Dutch army, the revolution in infantry tactics (the development of an orderly volley fire with firearms), field operations (including logistics and siege warfare), and military operations against Spain in the Low Countries.  The author depicts how the Dutch army transformed from an unreliable band of mercenaries into a disciplined military that held its own against the power of Spain.  Under the leadership of Maurits of Nassau and his cousin Willem Lodewijk, a tactical revolution, concerning the use of volley fire, was achieved that had a profound impact on battle.  But, the author points out the mutual distrust between the government and the Dutch army over military finances, which greatly hampered the recruitment, payment, and provisioning of troops. The lack of trust contributed to the inadequate organization structure of the Dutch army, the small size of the army, and the limited deployment of military forces.  Troop concentrations rarely reached a maximum of 25,000 to 30,000 men within the Dutch borders (p.294).  The Dutch Republic continued to rely on mercenaries and military entrepreneurs throughout the Eighty Years’ War.

In the second part of this study, Nimwegen addresses the Dutch army from the Peace of Westphalia (1648) to the outbreak of conflict with France in the Nine Years’ War (1688-97).  He notes that in the 1660s France underwent developments that led to a revolution in military organization, resulting in a massive expansion of the French army and its military potential.  Louis XIV’s France was the leading military power in Europe.  This military might was used against coalitions in the Wars of Louis XIV (1667-1713).  In the first conflict, the War of Devolution (1667-68), France quickly conquered most of the Spanish Netherlands.  In the second conflict, the Dutch War (1672-78), Louis XIV led the French army that invaded and promptly occupied half of the Dutch Republic.  The French threat and invasion led to the Dutch Republic making numerous changes.  Nimwegen shows that the Dutch army had to undergo its own organizational revolution to defend itself against the military might of France.  He writes: “It was not until the ‘struggle for survival’ (Existenzkampf), in which the Republic became entangled because of the French invasion in 1672, that a climate was created which made far-reaching structural reforms in the Dutch army possible.  At an astonishing speed the Republic’s land forces were then transformed from an army of mercenaries into a standing army of professional soldiers” (p.518).  The Dutch government, with the Province of Holland taking the lead, provided the financial resources to recruit, equip, pay, and feed a large-scale, professional standing army under the command of Prince William III of Orange.  This army adopted French innovations, including the establishment and use of supply magazines, advanced techniques in siege warfare, and the employment of modern military arms and equipment, resulting in an “organizational revolution” in the conduct of war.  The Dutch army, along with other coalition operations against Louis XIV, forced France to withdraw from the United Provinces in 1673.  The Dutch Republic kept and improved its standing army after the conflict because it could not afford to fight another lengthy war against Louis XIV without being prepared. 

Nimwegen’s study is the first major work on the Dutch army during the Military Revolution of Early Modern Europe in the English language.  It is based largely on primary sources from various archives throughout the Netherlands.  The work is well-written and will be the definitive study on the Dutch army during this period for a long time to come.  This study is highly recommended for individuals interested in the Eighty Years’ War, Dutch War, and the military history of Early Modern Europe.

Dr William Young
University of North Dakota 

Book Review of Edward IV and the Wars of the Roses

David Santiuste. Edward IV and the Wars of the Roses. Barnsley, Engl.: Pen and Sword, 2011. 978-1-84415-930-7. Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xvi, 192. $39.95.

This is a solid academic study of Edward IV’s political struggles and military campaigns against Lancastrian opponents during the first half of the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485). The Wars of the Roses is a complex, confusing subject concerning civil wars in England.  However, David Santiuste, a Tutor at Edinburgh University, provides a readable, easy way to follow the ups and downs of the conflicts, skillfully using academic and contemporary sources, by focusing on the military career of Edward Plantagenet.  The author sees Edward as “a courageous and talented soldier” (p.146), and one of the great medieval warrior kings of England.

Santiuste begins by discussing the first years of the Wars of the Roses.  He then concentrates on Edward’s experiences in warfare starting with his first taste of combat at the Battle of Northampton (1460).  Soon afterwards, Edward, the Earl of March, became the Duke of York and the Yorkist claimant to the English throne following the death of his father at the Battle of Wakefield (1460).  With the support of his cousin Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick (also known as the Kingmaker), the nineteen-year-old Edward of York defeated the Lancastrian armies of Henry VI of England at the battles of Mortimer’s Cross (1461) and Towton (1461), and then took London and claimed the English throne.  Thus ended Edward IV’s first great military campaign.

In the mid-1460s, the relationship between Edward IV and Warwick slowly disintegrated after the king’s secret marriage to Elizabeth Woodville.  The Woodvilles quickly became rivals to Warwick and his Neville relations.  Edward IV and Warwick no longer saw things eye-to-eye, especially over foreign policy with the Duchy of Burgundy and Kingdom of France.  Warwick soon began to sympathize with Lancastrian rebels.  A rebellion by Warwick and his supporters led to the defeat of a Yorkist army commanded by the Earl of Pembroke at the Battle of Edgecote Moor (1469), and the eventual capture of Edward IV.  Before long, however, Warwick and Edward IV established a fragile, short-lived peace.  The author notes the many rebel uprisings of the era, especially in northern England, and the king’s actions to put them down, including his victory at the Battle of Empingham (1470).  Even so, Warwick and the king’s brother, the Duke of Clarence, forced Edward IV to flee overseas to the Duchy of Burgundy in 1470.  This resulted in the restoration of Henry VI, under Warwick’s control, for a brief period.  Edward IV returned to England and began his second great military campaign.  He quickly gained control of London, and then defeated Warwick and the Earl of Oxford in thick fog at the Battle of Barnet (1471), and next the Duke of Somerset and the Lancastrians at the Battle of Tewkesbury (1471).  Edward IV’s victory was complete.  He would rule England for the next twelve years until his sudden death at the age of thirty-nine in 1483, leaving behind a twelve-year-old son, Edward V, to rule England.  The Wars of the Roses would continue until Henry Tudor and the Lancastrians defeated and killed Richard III (Edward IV’s brother) at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.

Santiuste provides more than a depiction of the military campaigns of the civil wars in England.  He describes the recruitment of soldiers, types and employment of military equipment, motivation of the nobility and soldiers, as well as the military organization of Lancastrian and Yorkist forces.  The importance of the elite English garrison at Calais across the English Channel for both Yorkists and Lancastrians is evident.  He relates foreign influence in the conflicts with discussions of Yorkist and Lancastrian intrigues and alliances with Duke Charles I “the Bold” of Burgundy, Duke Francis II of Brittany, King Louis XI “the Universal Spider” of France, and King James III of Scotland.  Some foreign rulers sought to keep England weak and divided, while others sought English alliances to aid their own personal ambitions on the continent.  Overall, this is a fine study of the Wars of the Roses that focuses on Edward IV and military operations.

Dr William Young
University of North Dakota

Battle of Barnet (1471)

 

 

 

Battle of Tewkesbury (1471)

 

Book Review of Henry VIII and Francis I: The Final Conflict, 1540-1547

David Potter. Henry VIII and Francis I: The Final Conflict, 1540-1547. History in Warfare series. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011. ISBN 978-90-04-20431-7. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xxix, 562. $243.00.

Dr David Potter, a Reader in History at the University of Kent, addresses the final war between Henry VIII of England (ruled 1509-1547) and Francis I of France (ruled 1515-1547) during the 1540s. The conflict was part of the later stages of the Italian Wars (1494-1559) or Habsburg-Valois Wars between the rulers of the Habsburg Holy Roman Empire and Spain against Valois France.

In the earlier conflicts, Henry VIII joined the Holy League alliance against Louis XII of France in 1511 in the War of the League of Cambrai (1508-1516). In 1513, Henry VIII personally led an invasion force into northeastern France in pursuit of glory and to expand English territory beyond the Pale of Calais. English and Imperial forces besieged Thérouanne, defeated a French relief force at the Battle of the Spurs (Guinegate), and then captured the town. The English king next besieged and took the city of Tournai in September 1513. England negotiated a separate peace with France in 1514, but kept Tournai for four more years. Then, in 1520, Henry VIII and Francis I met at the so-called Field of Cloth of Gold near Calais to increase their bond of friendship. This, however, did not last and French aggression led to England joining Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor (ruled 1519-1556) and King of Spain (1516-1556), against France in the Italian War of 1521-1526. English forces marched out of Calais and attacked the French in Picardy, burning and looting the countryside along the way, in 1522. In 1523, a massive English army under the Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, marched against France. Suffolk crossed the Somme River, but was unwilling to attack Paris, and therefore retired to Calais. England and France agreed to a peace settlement in 1526.

In the ensuing conflict, the War of the League of Cognac (1526-1530), Henry VIII allied with France, the Papacy, Venice, Milan, and Florence against Charles V in April 1527. But, in the following month, the Imperial army under the command of the Duke of Bourbon sacked the city of Rome. Henry VIII was now in no position to oppose Charles V. His foreign policy was tied to obtaining an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon (Charles V’s aunt) from the Imperial prisoner Pope Clement VII. Despite agreeing to a French alliance in 1532, the English monarch refused to provide aid to Francis I and sought to stay out of the short-lived Franco-Imperial War of 1536-1538. The conflict did not resolve the long-standing issues between the Habsburgs and Valois. But, the peace settlement left Henry VIII out in the cold, and he realized that England would have to take a side in the next conflict.

Potter calls the subject of his study, the final conflict, “the most serious and destructive war between England and France in the reigns of Henry VIII and Francis I (p.1).” In July 1542, Francis I, allied with Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire, declared war (the Italian War of 1542-1546) on the Holy Roman Empire. Henry VIII had tried to keep some diplomatic leverage with both Charles V and Francis I in the late 1530s and early 1540s. He prepared for the eventuality of war, using the significant boost in finances provided by the dissolution and sale of monasteries in England, by embarking on a serious program of refortification and shipbuilding. By 1542 relations between England and France were collapsing over French aid to Scotland. Henry VIII and Charles V overcame diplomatic issues and created an alliance in February 1543, with England expected to fight the auld alliance of France and Scotland. England declared war against France four months later. In December, Henry VIII and Charles V agreed to lead their armies in person in an offensive against France.

Henry VIII assembled an army of about 40,000 men at Calais, and the English forces moved slowly into France in June 1544. The English army was divided into two parts. The first part, commanded by Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, besieged Montreuil on the Canche River. Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, leading the other part of the English army began the siege of the port city of Boulogne. Charles V insisted that the English forget these sieges and march on Paris. Henry VIII refused to consider such operations until the fall of Montreuil and Boulogne. Then, in September 1544, the English, with Henry VIII in command, captured Boulogne. However, at this point, the Emperor, who was running short on finances and needing to deal with religious unrest in the Empire, signed a separate peace with France in the Treaty of Crépy. The war between England and France continued, but the English monarch left for England. Norfolk soon abandoned the siege of Montreuil and retreated to Boulogne as a large French army advanced into the region. Suffolk and Norfolk then withdrew the majority of English forces to Calais, leaving about 4,000 men to defend Boulogne against a French siege.

Peace negotiations began and quickly broke down. As a result, the French king opted for an invasion of England. Francis I assembled a large number of troops and ships in Normandy. In May 1545, a small expeditionary force sailed and landed in Scotland to aid the Scots in the Anglo-Scottish War of the Rough Wooing (1543-1550). Then, in July, the French fleet sailed and conducted small-scale raids on the Isle of Wight, and later at Seaford in Sussex. These operations failed to achieve success, so the French fleet redeployed and set up a blockade of Boulogne. By September 1545 the conflict was at a stalemate, both sides running low on men and money. Henry VIII and Francis I continued their peace talks, but the English monarch refused to give up Boulogne. The war finally ended with the Admirals’ Peace (Treaty of Ardres-Guînes) in June 1546. Boulogne would remain in English hands until the Treaty of Boulogne (1550). Both Henry VIII and Francis I would die in 1547, leaving new participants to fight with or against Charles V in the last of the Habsburg-Valois Wars, the Italian War of 1551-1559.

Potter has previously provided us important works in French politics and warfare including War and Government in the French Provinces: Picardy, 1470-1560 (1993), A History of France, 1460-1560: The Emergence of a Nation State (1995), and Renaissance France at War: Armies, Culture and Society, c.1480-1560 (2008). In the present study, the author discusses the international situation and diplomacy that resulted in a rapprochement and alliance between Henry VIII and Charles V in the late 1530s and early 1540s. He focuses on diplomacy and military operations throughout the conflict, providing a thorough discussion of Henry VIII’s military campaigns in northeastern France, the Anglo-French search for mercenaries, war at sea, the significant cost of the war, and peace negotiations. This outstanding study, based on archival research, is the first of three volumes that our author plans to write on Anglo-French conflicts from the last years of Henry VIII to the early reign of Elizabeth I. It is very expensive at $243, and hopefully the next two studies will not cost an arm and a leg.

Dr William Young
University of North Dakota

Siege of Boulogne by Henry VIII in 1544

Book Review of Marshal Vauban and the Defence of Louis XIV’s France

James Falkner. Marshal Vauban and the Defence of Louis XIV’s France. Barnsley, England: Pen and Sword Military, 2011. ISBN 978-1-84415-927-7. Maps. Illustrations. Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. viii, 226. $50.00.

James Falkner, a former British Army officer, has written a study concerning Sebastien Le Prestre, Marshal Vauban, and his contributions to fortress building and siege warfare during the reign of Louis XIV.  Falkner has previously provided us valuable studies on the Duke of Marlborough’s campaigns, battles, and sieges during the War of the Spanish Succession in Great and Glorious Days: The Duke of Marlborough’s Battles, 1704-1709 (2003), Blenheim 1704: Marlborough’s Greatest Victory (2004), Marlborough’s Wars: Eye Witness Accounts, 1702-1713 (2005), Ramillies 1706: Year of Miracles (2006), Marlborough’s Sieges (2007), and James Falkner’s Guide to Marlborough’s Battlefields (2008).  In this current study, the author examines the military career and role of Vauban in French military efforts in the later years of the Franco-Spanish War (1635-1659), War of Devolution (1667-1668), Dutch War (1672-1678/79), War of Reunions (1683-1684), Nine Years War (1688-1697), and early years of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713/14).

Falkner’s study examines both Vauban’s contribution to attack and defense in siege warfare.  Vauban was noted for his genius in the conduct of calculated offensive siege operations that included lines of circumvallation and contravallation as well as a systematic approach by the use of parallel trenches to capture enemy fortresses.  His system of siege warfare, not always adhered to by impatient French commanders, saved numerous men from the slaughter of massive assaults against well-defended positions.  Vauban’s experience grew from his first siege operation at Sainte-Menehould during the Fronde in 1652 and throughout the Wars of Louis XIV until his last effort at Alt-Breisach during the War of the Spanish Succession in 1703.  Vauban’s system would remain the standard method of attacking a fortress to the twentieth century.

Louis XIV expanded French territory, especially in northeastern France during the War of Devolution, Dutch War, and War of Reunions.  French borders, particularly in this region, were vulnerable to attacks.  As such, the Sun King sought to beef up his defense against enemy threats.  Falkner focuses on Vauban and his engineering efforts to assess and improve, or redesign and rebuild, as far as the French treasury would permit, a credible defense system for France.  As a result, Marshal Vauban built the two-line system of fortresses (from Dunkirk to Givet, and Gravelines to Stenay) to defend France in the northeast.  This system was known as the pré carré (the dueling field), or what our author calls the “Fence of Iron.”  The dual line of fortresses would save France from an allied invasion led by the Duke of Marlborough in the War of the Spanish Succession.  Falkner notes that these fortifications also played an important part in French military history for the next 250 years.

The author blends Vauban’s contributions to fortress building and siege operations with a general depiction of siege warfare in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.  This well-written study contains valuable appendices providing a chronological listing of Vauban’s siege operations; a list of more than 180 fortresses, citadels, towns, and forts under French control that the engineer designed, constructed, or improved during the reign of the Louis XIV; and a glossary of siege terms.  This work is highly recommend to anyone interested in Early Modern European Military History.  Falkner’s study is an outstanding addition to the available literature in English on Vauban and siege warfare, including Reginald Blomfield’s Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban, 1633-1707 (1938), Christopher Duffy’s Fortress Warfare in the Age of Vauban and Frederick the Great, 1680-1789 (1985), F.J. Hebbert and George A. Rothrock’s Soldier of France: Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban, 1633-1707 (1989), Paddy Griffith’s The Vauban Fortifications of France (2006), and Jean-Denis G.G. Lepage’s Vauban and the French Military under Louis XIV: An Illustrated History of Fortifications and Strategies (2009).  Vauban’s writings are also available in Rothrock’s translation of A Manual of Siegecraft and Fortification (1968). 

Dr. William Young
University of North Dakota

Vauban’s System of Parallel and Approach Trenches in Offensive Operations against a Fortress or Fortified Town

 

Le Pré Carré in northeast France (The Fence of Iron)

 

The Citadel and Fortress City of Lille

Book Review of Cross and Crescent in the Balkans: The Ottoman Conquest of South-Eastern Europe (14th-15th Centuries)

David Nicolle. Cross and Crescent in the Balkans: The Ottoman Conquest of South-Eastern Europe (14^th-15^th Centuries). Barnsley, England: Pen and Sword Military, 2010. ISBN 978-1-84415-954-3. Maps. Chronology. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xvi, 256. $39.95.

Dr David Nicolle is the author of numerous books dealing with medieval European and Islamic warfare, including Constantinople 1453: The End of Byzantium (2000), Nicopolis 1396: The Last Crusade (2001), Crusader Warfare (2007), and Knights of Jerusalem: The Crusading Order of the Hospitallers 1100-1565 (2008).  He has been a prolific writer for the Osprey military history series.  In the present study, the author provides a narrative that examines the complex history of Southeast Europe and the rise of the Ottoman Empire.  Nicolle addresses the culture of the numerous groups of people in the region, including government and politics, economics, religion, law, literature, as well as military tactics and equipment.  His study focuses on the turbulent history of the Middle East and the gradual unifying effect of Ottoman military might over a fragmented Anatolia and Southeast Europe.

The main thrust of this study that will interest military historians is on the Ottoman conquest of Southeast Europe.  By the fourteenth century the Byzantine Empire was weak militarily.  The Byzantines needed the alliance of the Ottoman Turks in the struggle against Christian Balkan states.  In 1353-55, the Ottomans gained their first foothold on the European continent as an ally of the Byzantine Emperor.  The Turks manned the fort of Çinbi and neighboring towns on the Gallipoli peninsula.  As Nicolle writes: “This would thereafter be the launch-pad for the Ottoman state’s eventual conquest of the entire Balkan peninsula” (p.64).  In fact, the Byzantines soon turned to the Serbs and Bulgarians for assistance against the Ottoman Turks.  But, the Ottomans, under Emir Murat (Murad) I (1362-89), pushed deep into Thrace, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Serbia.  He became “one of the most remarkable conquerors in medieval European history” (p.66).  Having captured Adrianople in eastern Thrace, Murat I renamed it Edirne and established the capital of the Ottoman Empire there in 1365.  He conquered western Thrace and Macedonia in 1371-76, and then obtained the vassal states of Bulgaria in 1376 and Dobruja in 1388.  Murat I took the title of sultan in 1383.  He led the Ottoman forces that defeated the Serbs at the First Battle of Kosovo in 1389.

Bayezit (Bayezid) I (1389-1402) picked up where his father left off.  He forced Serbia and Bosnia to become vassals of the Ottoman Empire in 1389, followed by Wallachia in 1391.  The Ottomans had control of the southern Balkans, having reduced the Byzantine Empire to the area immediately surrounding Constantinople.  In 1393, the Turks captured Nikopol (Nicopolis) in Bulgaria.  At this point, in 1394, Pope Boniface IX, with encouragement from the threatened states of Hungary, Venice, and Genoa, declared a crusade against the Ottoman Turks.  The crusade would include ground and naval forces from France, Burgundy, Hungary, Knights of St. John, the German Empire, Italian city-states, Byzantine Empire, and various other Christian states.  The crusade ended at the Battle of Nikopol, where the Ottomans soundly defeated the Crusaders, in September 1396.  The author stresses that, “the best Crusading army that western Christendom could muster had been utterly defeated in its first real battle” (p.123).  As a result, the Kingdom of Hungary was gravely weakened in its defense against the Turkish threat.  Fortunately, Bayezit I turned his attention away from Europe to the danger of Timur-i Lenk (Tamerlane) on the Asian front.  Timur had already overrun large parts of Russia, Iran, India, and Central Asia.  In 1400, Timur moved his army into Anatolia and northern Syria, capturing Damascus in 1401, and then outmaneuvering and defeating Bayezit I at the Battle of Ankara in 1402.  The Sultan was captured (and died in captivity) while the shattered Ottoman army fled to the west.  Timur ravaged Turkish lands to the Aegean Sea, capturing Izmir in 1402.  Nicolle points out that “the defeat . . . could have spelled the end of the Ottoman state, but the fact that it did not do so says a great deal for the inherent strength of early Ottoman government and military systems” (p.136).  Fortunately, Timur turned towards the goal of conquering Chinese territory.

The Ottoman Sultanate remained in turmoil for a number of years.  The Ottoman Empire experienced a series of civil wars between the four sons of Bayezit I for control of the Sultanate.  As a result, Serbia, Bosnia, and Wallachia threw off Ottoman control.  Eventually, in 1413, Mehmet I (Mehmed) (1413-21) emerged as the leader of the Ottomans.  Ottoman power would rise under the leadership of Mehmet I, his son Murat II (1421-44, 1446-51), and his son Mehmet II (1444-46, 1451-81).  The Ottomans regained the lost Balkan provinces by 1524, and forced Dubrovnik (Ragusa) to become a vassal state in 1430, followed by conquering Epirus and southern Albania in 1431-33.  The growth of Ottoman power resulted in King Wladislaw (Wladyslaw) III of Poland-Hungary launching a crusade against the Turks in 1443.  However, Murat II defeated the Crusaders at the Battle of Varna in 1444.  “Once again,” so declares Nicolle, “a victory against the biggest and best-equipped army that Western Christendom could send against them brought huge prestige to the Ottomans” (p.153).  Now the Turks forced Morea to become a vassal state, and then imposed direct rule over Bulgaria in 1446.  Shortly thereafter, in 1448, Janos Hunyadi, the Regent-Governor of Hungary, led a Hungarian-Wallachian invasion of Ottoman territory.  This time the Turkish army under Murat II defeated the invaders at the Second Battle of Kosovo.  The Turks now dominated the Balkan Region.

The youthful Mehmet II sought to conquer the fragmented remnants of the Byzantine Empire.  The main goal was the city of Constantinople, technically a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, ruled by Constantine XI Palaiologos (1449-53).  The author points out that in “purely military terms the Byzantine Empire was now a very minor player in the events of south-eastern Europe” (p.176).  But Constantinople was protected by massive walls, a small army and navy, and held the strategic island of Imroz off the mouth of the Dardanelles.  Even so, the Ottomans had the advantages of a larger naval fleet, massive siege guns, and a large army against the Byzantines and their allies in the siege of Constantinople in 1453.  The actual siege lasted for fifty-four days before the Turks overran the city.  “The impact of the fall of Constantinople on the Byzantine world,” Nicolle writes, “was of course catastrophic and sent shock waves across Orthodox Christendom . . .” (p.217).

Mehmet II “the Conqueror” next turned towards Wallachia, Moldavia, and Greece, taking control of most of the Balkans by 1460.  All that was left to resist Turkish power in the region were Venetian enclaves around Greece and the Balkans, Venetian and Genoese outposts in the Aegean and Adriatic Seas, as well as Genoese outposts in the Crimea.  The Aegean and Black Seas, however, would become Ottoman lakes in the late fifteenth century, and the Venetian Republic and its overseas empire would continue its struggle against the Ottoman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean Region.  The Turks would raid into northeastern Italy in the late 1490s and soon be knocking on the door of the Kingdom of Hungary.

Nicolle’s Cross and Crescent in the Balkans: The Ottoman Conquest of South-Eastern Europe (14^th-15^th Centuries) is a good introduction to the early Ottoman Empire and the conquest of Southeast Europe.  It conveys the complex history of the region with its numerous fragmented states over several hundred years of history.  It is highly informative, but the author goes off track at times from the theme of the Ottoman’s conquest of Southeast Europe and the study almost becomes a general history of the region.  The book has a few typographical errors and mistakes, which the editor should have caught, resulting in frustration and confusion for the reader.  It also lacks notes citing the sources used.  Overall, however, this study is useful for general readers and undergraduate students.

Dr William Young
University of North Dakota