Londonderry mortars: Bombs 'within minutes' of launch

[happyslug]

13. Nope, prior to the 19th century, most armies were paid mercenary armies

You must understand they are three ways to raise an army, first and the oldest is by paying for the army in loot. This is how the Crusaders decided to pay for the Crusades (and the main reason the Fourth Crusade took Constantinople). You get a lot of recruits if loot is a good option. This option fails if there is no loot to be had. For example when the Vikings hit Christian Europe, the ruling class just left. After the Viking left the ruling class came back and demanded their rent money. This cause problems, mostly with Christian peasants willing to serve with the Vikings, or at least be neutral to their raids. It is only with Feudalism that Europe undid the Viking threat, the Kings of Europe told their vassals if they did not protect their peasants, he would replace them with people who would. This lead to massive replacement of the old Roman Elite starting about 800 and was finished about 1000 AD. This replacement was so complete, no noble family in Europe can trace their family name, in the male line, back before 800 AD (And that is most English Families who can trace themselves back only to Alfred the Great, who in many ways started the movement to feudalism and away from late Roman Empire land ownership concepts).

The second is to pay the army, which in effect what Alfred the Great imposed on England, if you were a land owner you had to fight for the king, if you did not fight, you lost your land. No questions. If you were female, your husband had to perform the military duty. Now after about 1300 these feudal duties were transferred to taxes, but remain for years (if no taxes were paid, you lost your land). Later on when cash was reinvented, soldiers were paid with CASH. This was true even if you raised your troops locally, for even the local needed money to pay for things like clothing and food, not only for themselves but their wives, children and other relatives.

The third method is protection of the homeland, but even here some way to pay for food and clothing has to be found. This is often tied in with the second method, as can be seen in Feudalism, mutual protection was tied in with the nobility right to his noble status. The Noble had to at least TRY to stop the vikings and protect the peasants or he lost his lands (Given the nature of the Vikings raid, any such defense was enough for them to go elsewhere, thus it was an effective defense). Ancient Roman Armies were raised this way, till it became clear the purpose of the wars was to enrich the elites of Rome, then Rome switched to a mercenary army (Due to soldiers refusing to serve, unless paid to do so). Religion can be used, but most often it is welfare of one's family that causes men to serve in such armies, religion is at best secondary.

For example in the 30 year war, the Armies were all hired mercenaries, not fanatical religious patriots. What religious fanatics were involved were tied in this the Government and the Government's effort to raise money to pay the army. Thus the Catholic King of France had no problems joining with the Protestants forces of Northern Europe to defeat the Catholic Hapsburg's. France's Catholic mercenaries had no problem fighting along side Protestant mercenaries against Catholic Spanish and Austrians Mercenaries, as long as they were paid.

The sole exception to this list of armies raised before 1800s were the Hussites of the 1400s, but the Hussites were more a wide spread peasant revolt against oppression rents then fanatics on the March. There were lead by someone who knew what he had to do AND what he had to do it with:

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/matthaywood/main/Hussite_Tactics_and_Organisation.htm

The reason for this is simple, Fanatics rarely think in terms of food, clothing or equipment. Once you think in terms of Food, Clothing and Equipment, money becomes involved and thus you end up with either a call up for mutual defense (Ancient Rome and most defensive armies) or you are either being PAID to march or march in hopes of loot. Faith or Nationalism does NOT pay for your food, clothing or equipment, cash does. When the Prime Minister of England in the early 1700s was asked by General John Churchill about why he always worried about money when fighting a war, responded "If you can tell me how to fight a war without it, I will never mention money again".

Oliver Cromwell found this to be the case during his campaign in the English Civil War, his inability to pay off his troops, lead to them becoming a permanent standing army and England, when they brought back the Stuarts, were less interested in bringing back the King, but that the King had access to Dutch Money to help pay off Cromwell's mercenary army (Most ended up moving to New England). The Dutch provided most of the money (But Charles II also had to sell back to France Calais, which Cromwell had won for England just before his death).

Now, after 1800 and the raise of Nationalism you started to see a return to the universal soldier army of the early Roman Republic (through some mercenary aspect survived to this day), men were drafted into the service to protect the people. of which they were one. The problem with this type of army is the Enemy must be clear AND that it will lead to massive economic harm to the Country AND the family of the draftee. If the Draftee no longer sees that as a possibility, his effectiveness as a soldier falls, as can be seen in the US Army in the last years of Vietnam and in some ways the Soviet Union's army in the last years of its occupation of Afghanistan.

While such types of armies would make your statement true, but such armies tend to be nationalistic rather then religious, as those terms are used in the west. Thus religion is what is generally believe by a participate in a war, not a belief in god, or any religious dogma. In vietnam it was anti-communists, in Afghan, it was advancement of communism vs anticommunism. In Afghan of today, it is independence of foreign control (The Taliban position) vs war against terrorism (The US position). If you accept those as Religious positions, then I will agree with you, religion has been a factor, but appears to be a bigger factor since 1800 then it was before 1800.