Armies and Warfare

Abstract

The crippled, limping, gun-laden protagonist, dependent on begging, in Harlequin Returning from the Wars, a mid-century work by the Florentine painter Giovanni Ferretti, was as realistic an image of war as the triumphal celebrations, mingling thanks to God and man, that greeted victory — celebrations in which many losers found it expedient to share. If, for most people, the state was more peripheral than the harvest or the conflict with disease, none the less the most significant impact of political society was war, the damage it could create, and the need to support it, through finance, recruitment and supplies. All societies were militarised, in the sense that armies were a significant government preoccupation, their financing, directly or indirectly, a major problem for both state and subject. Military affairs are thus worthy of attention because they reflect the aspirations and limitations of political action in a sphere which was deemed crucial.