heim and imposed his will on the Continent of Europe with 50,000 mixed British, Dutch and Austrian troops. France was considered, in this period, the great military power of the world. Just before the Revolution of 1789 her armies had a theoretical war strength of 210,000, or about one in 100 of the population. Nor was the economic burden of warfare very heavy. The weapons were comparatively few and primitive—flint lock muskets for the infantry, sabres and lances for the cavalry, plain smooth-bore cannon for the artillery. Speaking generally, ammunition consisted of four standard commodities—black powder, round lead bullets, flints, and solid cannon balls. The factories which supplied enough of this ammunition for the limited armies of the day represented only a very small part of the nation’s productive forces. And, except in regions swept by the armies, the industries of the nations went on in war much as in peace. Even an unsuccessful war laid on the people only a comparatively light burden of taxation. The losses in men were not so great but that the general increase in races almost instantly filled the gap. At Blenheim, before mentioned, Marlborough lost less than five thousand men both killed and wounded, the defeated French and their Bavarian allies only eleven thousand.
Then came the French Revolution. The new, fanatical French Republic, opposed by an alliance of all the kings of Europe, its frontier invaded, its
