Who Invented The Harquebus

The harquebus was the first firearm used between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. The harquebus is also known as the arquebus or the hackbut. Those who shot this weapon were known as harquebusiers. The harquebus was the first light weight firearm, weighing 5 kilos and a barrel a meter long, extremely small for the time. Remember, this is in comparison to anything that used gunpowder, for example, a cannon. The other amazing aspect of the harquebus is that it could be operated by only one soldier. The firearm came with a post, or wooden stand. A harquebusier would load a 15-gram lead ball into the harquebus was “cocked” by a matchlock. This is what made the weapon ready to fire. Its long barrel had flared ends that made the weapon much
easier to pack and load. The harquebusier would brace the barrel of the gun onto a pole with a forked end when firing. The first place historians see the harquebus show its dominance over its opponents is in 1525. During the Battle of Pavia in the Italian War, powerful French knights were defeated by heavy Spanish gunfire. The Spanish attack provided incentive for others to acquire the harquebus and harness its capabilities. As time advanced so did technology. The harquebus was eventually replaced by the musket, but was the catalyst of firearms for the future. Inventions like gunpowder led to state inventions, like navies.
During and before the Reformation, there was always a want among national governments and rulers to own the sea.
The problem was without reliable ships to navigate the ocean; it was more trouble than it was worth for most nations to send their navies out into the blue. However, with the reformations of ships’ speed, ability to navigate, and increased durability, nations began using the oceans for commerce and exploration. Now, all nations had their eyes fixed on controlling the sea. Almost instantly, there was growing government interest in control of specific sites and control of violence at sea along with the use of privately owned ships for acts of war. When nations came into contests to control the sea, it led to war on the water. Though, the Renaissance was a period of great success for Europeans at sea around the world, it was a time of warfare at sea as well. Naval escapades during the sixteenth century were the catalyst of naval warfare of the future. As the Renaissance progressed nations moved towards nation-run navies. Naval warfare was slower to take off compared to land
warfare.

The capacities of gunpowder and those able to obtain them led to the modern state.
The power that came from gunpowder led to the beginning of the modern state.
Turning gunpowder into artillery or into firearms was an expensive hobby. Those who could not create gunpowder for themselves were forced to purchase some form of it or risk falling behind the military world. Once inventors were able to produce extensive uses for gunpowder, powerful nations and emperors began paying for vast amounts of cannon fire, gunpowder, muskets, bayonets, and all the means to maintain and repair these assets. Being that the rich employed the inventors, the rich took credit for the inventions! This meant that if someone wanted to buy the new musket, they had to buy it from the nation or emperor, not the inventor! With the growing advantage gunpowder gave the rich, other nations committed large amounts of cash to firearms. This created a cycle, in which the stronger nations would supply themselves, off of the money of the poorer nations, who were barley able to keep up. Central governments of large states could afford artillery trains and large armies. The artillery trains counter-acted centrifugal forces and enabled the central governments to increase their control over outlying areas of their realms, or to expand at the expense of their weaker neighbors. This increased their tax revenues, enabling them to support bigger artillery trains and armies, enabling them to increase their centralization of control and their tax revenues still further, and so on. The inability of the
weaker nations to keep up with the stronger nations led to the rise of the early modern state. War was becoming increasingly expensive.