Britain, France and Germany dealt with their booming population in the 19thC largely by industrialisation. Britain supplemented this with emigration and France with a revolution that changed agrarian patterns into a martial one. South and West of Germany William H. McNeill identifies the inability of industrialisation to "keep pace with population growth." McNeill argues that this political fault line or area of 'acute political distress' manifested itself in the Hapsburg Empire and the Balkans. It was the assassination of a Hapsburg Prince by a Slavic political revolutionary that started the mechanics of what would be World War I. (more)
adam : Balkans and the Middle East, not a bad comparison, you can also see a recent history of being shoved about and defined by Great Powers.
Often the implementation of organisational technologies revolutionise systems and performance. Sometimes quite cheaply. William H. McNeill identifies the introduction of systematic drill to European warfare by the Dutch Maurice of Nassau in 1585. This changed organised violence in Europe and paved the way for the modern routines of Military Drill. (more)
adam : I like these - they are like a more grounded version of the pattern stuff I attempted for a while.
cam : McNeill is looking for how power is made manifest. Where politics and violence clash to consolidate power, so he is looking for patterns that make that power possible. It is an interesting book.
He doesn't mention that drill is a technology which enables domestic suppression.
McNeill is looking at international politics, but I think it is obvious through the Irish and Australian experiences that a well armed rabble is at a disadvantage against smaller numbers of well drilled infantry. IIRC in 1804 at Vinegar Hill the convict rebels had gathered up something like 75% of Sydney's available arms including firearms and pikes but the well drilled Rum Corps cut them to ribbons quickly.
I think drill as an organisational technology is hugely important in maintaining domestic power too.
William H. McNeill in Pursuit of Power discusses the phenomonen of command technology. He uses the term in a similar manner to command economy and describes it as state based and state funded technological innovation through the military. Rather than the industrial-military complex as described by Eisenhower, to McNeill it would be the technology-military complex. McNeill traces the origins of command technology to the late-19thC British Navy. (more)
