2 The Russians were not to make the same mistake; instead, they were to consolidate both the diplomatic positions acquired through the Great Northern War and the prevailing political and socio-economic system at home by building up an efficient administrative system. This military and administrative development in Russia was not unique; most European states had already passed through a similar developmental process. When feudal armies of fiefholders and vasalls were forced from the center of the military stage by mercenary troops in the sixteenth century, and when they were replaced entirely by regular standing armies in the seventeenth century, the revenue requirements of European monarchs had increased drastically. The seventeenth century saw the creation of the largest armies since the days of the Roman empire; by the end of the century most European states had regular armies, and many had regular navies, both of which were maintained in peacetime, as well as during periods of conflict. Thanks to changes in infantry tactics (the introduction of the operative line tactic) and new military technology (the development of firearms and artillery), the feudal armies of knights were replaced by strictly organized units with a permanent corps of officers and men equipped and paid by the government.^ The effectiveness of the feudal military system had rested ultimately on the extent to which fiefholders and vasalls fulfilled the military obligations they had assumed through their feudal oaths to their king or feudal lord. The creation of standing units dependent upon the state for the regular payment of their wages eliminated this uncertainty at the same time that absolute monarchical power, no longer dependent on the agreements reached between the crown and the powerful feudal lords, began to appear in several countries. The political fragmentation that had marked the countries of medieval Europe so clearly could, in this way, be overcome; the state began to assume the character of a political and military power structure to a much greater degree. As the Danish economic historian Niels Stensgaard has pointed out, armies, together with navies, fortifications, and royal palaces, constituted one of the seventeenth century’s most advanced forms of enterprise, one of its greatest organizational undertakings, and one of its greatest investments. Taken together, such enterprises led during the period to the growth of public expenditures to previously unknown levels."* * For a general survey of the military developments of the period, see Michael Roberts, “The Military Revolution, 1560—1660,” in idem. Essays in Swedish History (London & Minneapolis, 1967), 195—225. For developments in tactics, see especially Herbert Schwarz, Gefechtsformen der Infanterie und ihre EntwickUing in Mitteleuropa (Munich, 1962), 47—90. ^ Niels Stensgaard, “Det syttende arhundredcs krise," Historisk tidsskrift.
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