French Artillery Reform In The Late Hundred Years’ War

The concept of “Military revolution” aroused a wide discussion in the field of military history once it put forward.Scholars believed that it was necessary to link military changes with social development and discuss the relationship between military changes and society system but to discuss the techniques in the war simply as before.The change in the European military field in the fifteenth century is commonly referred to as the Artillery Revolution.The reason why it is called "revolution" is because it is not confined to the effects of the military field,as the new weapons of war,the development of artillery has accelerated the pace of war and changed the traditional knightly combat model since the Middle Ages.Otherwise,the feudal social system for hundred of years in the Middle Ages had been impacted and the process of modernization in Europe also been accelerated.Although artillery was used in warfare by European countries in the 14 th century,due to its immature technology,there are many limitations and can only be used in siege wars with traditional siege tools such as trebuchets.However,until the 1530 s,the range,power,firing efficiency,and safety of guns had greatly improved because of technological innovations in several areas like manufacturing technique of guns,improvements in gunpowder and the filling techniques of guns.The reformed artillery posed a huge threat to the traditional European defense system,the castle fortress,which reversed the dominance of the fortifications over the infantry over the centuries in the Middle Ages.The British archers broke the myth of chivalry in the Middle Ages during the Hred Years’ War.Charles VII realized that he couldn’t defeat Britain on the battlefield and regain lost ground without reforms in the army from the defeats at the Battle of Crecy,Poitiers,and Agincourt.The building of artillery was an important part of the reform of the French army,and Charles VII entrusted this task to the Bureau Brothers,gunners of civilian origin.The reformed artillery played an important role in the siege of Harfleur,Bayeux,and Honfleur,and for the first time defeated the British in field combat at The Battle of Castillon.The artillery reform not only strengthened the military strength of France,enabled Charles VII to quickly recover the territory and win the war,but also had a profound impact on the social development and political system of France and even Europe.This paper argues that the artillery reform in the 15 th century laid the foundation for the subsequent fortification revolution,tactical revolution and naval war revolution,of which Charles VII was the earliest beneficiary.It was the development of artillery that laid the foundation for France to become the dominant power in Europe in the following centuries.Moreover,this revolution was closely related to the development of French society.This military revolution promoted the transformation of Europe from a feudal society to a modern society,on the other hand,the struggles and economic development emerged in the process of social transformation stimulated the development of the military.The performance of the archers made the French nobles realize that the knights were no longer the rulers of the battlefield.The advantage of artillery over castles forced the French Kings to upgrade their infantry forces and start to build standing armies,therefore the forms of war gradually began to be modernized,knights began to decline as a social class.At the same time,the artillery revolution triggered the reform of the defense system,which developed the rearward defense system on the basis of the traditional castle to cope with the powerful artillery power,which rapidly raised the cost of war,and the dominant power of war was increasingly concentrated in the hands of the king and the great nobility.With the expansion of the army and the emergence of the new defense system,the national finance was under more and more pressure from the military aspect.In order to increase the tax revenue,the bureaucracy was constantly expanded and the government functions were gradually improved.The changes in various aspects caused by the artillery revolution promoted the collapse of the traditional feudal system in Western Europe,and a centralized authoritarian state began to take shape.