The `Military Revolution' Afloat: The Era of the Anglo-Dutch Wars and the Transition to Modern Warfare at Sea

Abstract

Beginning in the sixteenth century, myriad interrelated changes in the art of war in the West, first described by Michael Roberts as a 'military revolution', enabled the European states to secure global hegemony. While military leaders ashore could look back on a fairly rich written western tradition and draw at least some lessons from history, naval commanders of the seventeenth century secured no insights from the study of a nearly barren naval past. Captain John Smith's A Sea Grammar, first published in 1627 but reissued in 1652 as the First Anglo-Dutch War began, proffered some general guidelines for war at sea. It was instead a deliberate step toward a new concept of naval organization based upon the extension of military values to warfare at sea.' The First and Second Anglo-Dutch Wars marked the beginning of a new tactical system.