ABSTRACT
The focus in Western conflict in this period is in large part on warfare between largely similar forces, ‘symmetrical warfare’, although the large-scale wars between the Turks and their Austrian and Russian neighbours were very different in type. In Asia, the key conflicts led to the defeat of the Zunghars of Xinjiang by Chinese forces, and the Chinese conquest of Tibet, as well as the faltering of Mughal India, largely at the hands of the Marathas. In each case, there were major military contrasts between the combatants, but political issues were also significant in helping explain success and failure. In Europe, the most significant struggles were the defeat of the Turks by the Austrians, and, to a lesser extent, the triumph of Peter the Great of Russia over his Swedish rival, Charles XII, in the middle stage of the Great Northern War (1700-21). Conflicts between Louis XIV of France and his neighbours tend to attract more attention and are indeed of consequence as Louis’s hopes of dominating western Europe were dashed, but they should not be seen as defining the nature of Western conflict in this period. The period 1689-1721 had the heaviest fighting between 1618-48 and 1792-1815, and, given the demographic growth from the 1740s, fighting then often had proportionately greater impact than in 1792-1815. Thus, the years 1689-1721 are central to the challenge to the cliché of ancien régime limited warfare.
