Includes bibliographical references and index.

Acknowledgements -- Figures and Tables -- Notes on Contributors -- Introduction: Mobilising Resources for War: Early Modern Military Entrepreneurs and Their Transnational Fields of Action -- Philippe Rogger, André Holenstein -- PART 1: Chances and Challenges: Actors and Forms of the Enterprise -- SECTION: Military and Non-Military Entrepreneurs -- 1 Logistics, Politics, and War: The Military Entrepreneur Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar and Supplying the Army from the Swiss Confederation in the Thirty Years' War -- Astrid Ackermann -- 2 Feeding Breisach: Hans Ludwig von Erlach's Fortress Management and Military Enterprise in the Thirty Years' War -- Philippe Rogger -- 3 " Quelques malhonêtes particuliers "? Army Suppliers and War Commissaries as Profiteers of the Seven Years' War -- Marian Füssel -- 4 Intergenerationality as a Challenge: The Swiss Guard Company of the Erlach Family, 1639–1770 -- Benjamin Ryser -- 5 Beyond Gender Boundaries: Women's Involvement in Military Careers in the Swiss Foreign Service (18th–19th Centuries) -- Jasmina Cornut -- SECTION: Public-Private Partnership, Feudal Patterns, and the Relativity of ‘State' and ‘Private' -- 6 Military Enterprise and Civil War: Private Armies and Warfare in France around the Fronde , 1641–52 -- David Parrott -- 7 Merchant of Death: Maximilien Titon (1632–1711) and the Supply of Arms in Louis XIV's France -- Guy Rowlands -- 8 The Officer as Military Entrepreneur in Miles Perpetuus : Examples from the Armies of the Empire 1650–1800 -- Alexander Querengässer -- PART 2: Transnational Fields of Action -- SECTION: Networks, Hubs, Markets -- 9 A Polity Full of Contractors: The Swiss Cantons and Their Business of War (15th to 19th Centuries) -- André Holenstein and Philippe Rogger -- 10 The Republic of Geneva as a Fiscal-Military Hub, 1685–1709: Finance, Information, and Espionage -- John Condren -- 11 At the Crossroads of Population and Capital: Recruiting in Geneva for the French Service under the Ancien Régime -- Sébastien Dupuis -- 12 Foreign Military Labour in Early Modern Europe -- Peter H. Wilson -- 13 Civilian Trade and War Business in the Early Modern Mediterranean -- The Case of Genoese Military Transporters in the War of Spanish Succession -- Michael Paul Martoccio -- 14 Military Money Men: The Toils of Entanglement and the Business Model of Harley & Drummond, Remittance Contractors -- Tim Neu -- SECTION: Diplomacy and Patronage -- 15 From Private Entrepreneurship to State Monopoly -- Contracting Swiss Soldiers for Dutch Service under Ancien Régime Fiscal-Military Practices (1693–1829) -- Michael Depreter -- 16 A Career Before the Career? On the Emergence of the ‘ Créature ' Peter Stuppa -- Katrin Keller -- 17 The Besenval Family: Constants and Changes in Its Military Entrepreneurial Activities (1650–1800) -- Julien Grand -- Comment: The Sinew of War -- Regula Schmid -- Index.

"Money, money, and more money." In the eyes of early modern warlords, these were the three essential prerequisites for waging war. The transnational studies presented here describe and explain how belligerent powers did indeed rely on thriving markets where military entrepreneurs provided mercenaries, weapons, money, credit, food, expertise, and other services. In a fresh and comprehensive examination of pre-national military entrepreneurship – its actors, structures and economic logic – this volume shows how readily business relationships for supplying armies in the 17th and 18th centuries crossed territorial and confessional boundaries. By outlining and explicating early modern military entrepreneurial fields of action, this new transnational perspective transcends the limits of national historical approaches to the business of war. Contributors are Astrid Ackermann, John Condren, Jasmina Cornut, Michael Depreter, Sébastien Dupuis, Marian Füssel, Julien Grand, André Holenstein, Katrin Keller, Michael Paul Martoccio, Tim Neu, David Parrott, Alexander Querengässer, Philippe Rogger, Guy Rowlands, Benjamin Ryser, Regula Schmid, and Peter H. Wilson.

English

Description based on print version record.