Furies (3)

The monstrosities of the early modern state were most visible in Europe’s great powers. They put huge armies into the field, but could not afford to keep them there, save by means of theft and violence against their own people, not to speak of what their armies did to other peoples. They tended to treat their ordinary soldiers like the scum of the earth, broke every contract with them, and yet demanded their loyalty or were ready to see them flogged, mutilated, brandied, shipped out as galley slaves, or hanged when they deserted. Using the poor, the unemployed, and the marginal, including common criminals, as cannon fodder, they can be said to have pursed a politics of social cleansing. They depended on entrepreneur officers for the raising of their armies, thereby abandoning critical elements of control over numbers, quality and costs. The besieging of cities, the most sustained and shrill of all acts of war against civilians, was the norm of warfare for them. When their armies were unpaid or hungry, the plunder and ravaging of rural communities was also a norm (Furies p.245.

These were mostly Christian political powers.