Why European Wars Became More Destructive After The Year 1500

Welcome back. For today’s article, I will discuss why European wars became more destructive and lasted much longer, which could be over ten years after 1500.

This is because the European states finally started to recover after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 A.D.

The destruction of the Western Roman Empire is essential to the historical context because from the year 476 A.D. until the late 15th century, the kingdoms of Europe were highly decentralised and administrated military power functioned through a network of alliances and cooperation.

In today’s modern vernacular, we call that system feudalism, where the knights were loyal to a barren, the barren to a Count or an Earl, and the knights followed the reigning monarch.

In 1500, the kings of Europe finally started to centralise royal authority, which allowed the new monarchies to raise more taxes and raise large armies for longer because the armies surpassed 100,000 in the 16th century.

This was also possible due to the increasing administrative state throughout the continent, particularly in Western Europe.

Some of warfare’s limitations further enhanced its destructiveness, as demonstrated during the Valois’s Italian Wars with the House of Habsburgs from 1494 to 1559.

The Valois kings often had an army of over 150,000 strong to face their Hapsburg rivals who ruled the Spanish kingdoms, the…