1 - The Savoyard army, 1690–1720

Summary

Armies, particularly standing ones, and their development, have figured largely in accounts of state formation, particularly for those who see this as being about the state's assertion of a monopoly of legitimate force within its own borders. Some historians are now less inclined to see this as of overriding importance, rightly urging the need to beware of seeing the use of coercive force by the prince as the only (or even the decisive) element in the consolidation of the state. However, it would be difficult to deny the contribution of armed might in the formation of the Savoyard state between 1690 and 1720. Firstly, it defended that state from foreign conquest, removed threats (Casale, Pinerolo) to its independence and ultimately underpinned its sovereignty. Secondly, the ducal forces conquered places and territories which contributed to the enlargement and reshaping of Victor Amadeus' state. These included the conquest of the Alpine fortresses, which provided that state thenceforth with a more defensible frontier, and of the Pragelato. After securing the latter, Victor Amadeus rejected a request that he respect the Pragelato's traditional liberties, instead asserting his own right of conquest. This episode reveals, thirdly, that the duke's army could assert his authority within his dominions. The entry of his forces was a crucial symbolic, and real, part of his assumption of territories ceded to him.