ABSTRACT
Geoffrey Parker has repeatedly accounted for the growth of European armies in the early modern period by reference to the creation and spread of a style of fortress created in Italy during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. This trace italienne employed the bastion to render fortifications far less vulnerable to armies equipped with the more plentiful and much improved artillery of the age. The relationship between the attack and defense of fortifications and the tremendous expansion of French military forces can best be addressed by examining the influence of seven variables in the formula of siege warfare: the geometry of the trace italienne; the length of lines of circumvallation; the size of attacking and defending forces; the cost of sieges in time and casualties; the number of sieges undertaken; the proportions of covering or relieving forces; and the quantity of troops assigned to garrison duty.
