Theme 9. Technique of the manufacturing era

Thus, at the beginning of the 18th century, a new science, theoretical mechanics, was born. In the next century, this science became the main tool of engineers who calculated new machines - but in those days there were still no machines and scientists counted the movement of comets. The highest achievement of the XVII century technology was the so-called "Marley car"; it included 14 water wheels with a diameter of 12 meters and was designed to ensure the operation of Versailles fountains. The machines of that time worked with the help of water wheel drives and the plants were located along the rivers. The largest metallurgical plants were located in Sweden - there were rich iron ores in this country and there was no shortage of charcoal. In the 1610s, the Swedish mines attracted the attention of the wealthy Dutch manufactory Louis de Geer (1587-1652), who managed to manufacture light-duty iron cannons; his 4-pound cannon, along with a wagon, weighed 35 pounds and could be transported by a harness of two horses. From now on, the guns could move around the battlefield with the infantry; de Geer organized the mass production of guns, and soon two light "regimental" guns were attached to each regiment of the Swedish army; in the hands of the Swedes was a new all-destructive weapon.

The fundamental discovery of the Swedes, light artillery, caused a new wave of invasions. In 1630, the Swedish army led by King Gustav Adolf landed in Germany, and a year later, in the battle of Breitenfeld, Swedish howitzers shot the army of Emperor Ferdinand II. The Swedes became the masters of Central Europe, during the twenty years of the war 20 thousand cities and villages were burned down and 2/3 of the population of Germany were killed. Then the Swedish army collapsed on Poland - it was a terrible "flood" when almost all Polish cities were looted and half of the Poles perished. In 1700, the Swedish king Charles XII defeated the Russian army near Narva; the Swedes could have captured Moscow, but the Swedish king moved to Poland - he believed that victory would not leave him, that the Russians still could not do anything. Karl believed that the Russians did not have good iron ore, they bought almost all the high-quality iron in Sweden. However, the king was wrong; shortly before that, the richest ore deposits were found in the Urals, and just before the start of the war, Tsar Peter ordered the establishment of a large plant in Kamensk. Foreign craftsmen were invited, the plant was built in a big hurry; in the autumn of 1701, the first blast furnace was launched, in 1702 the plant produced 180 cannons, and in 1703 - almost 600 cannons - four times more than was lost near Narva. When Charles XII invaded Russia in 1708, he was met by powerful artillery; in the battle of Poltava, most of the attacking Swedish infantry could not reach the Russian ranks - it was exterminated by Russian cannon fire.

The adoption of Swedish military equipment meant modernization for Russia according to the European model. Peter's reforms included the creation of a new industry, a new army, a new state administration, the adoption of European clothing and European customs. As a result of this modernization, Russia entered the European cultural circle and became a European country. Ural ore was better than Swedish, and Urals metallurgy created by Peter soon took first place in Europe. The first chief of the Ural mining plants was a friend and associate of Peter, a Dutch engineer, Wilhelm de Gennin; his successor was Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev, who studied in Sweden. Ural blast furnaces for those times were the largest in the world, they reached 13 meters in height and 4 meters in diameter. Russian metallurgists and artillery engineers soon surpassed their foreign teachers; In 1757, under the leadership of Count Peter Shuvalov, the best artillery gun of those times, the howitzer "Unicorn", was created. In 1759, at the Battle of Kunersdorf, "unicorns" shot the army of Prussian King Frederick II. The unicorn became the new weapon of Russia, the appearance of which spawned a wave of Russian conquests; At the beginning of the XIX century the borders of Russia reached the Danube and the Vistula.

While the outcome of wars on land was determined by artillery, the outcome of wars at sea was determined by the perfection of ship design. The end of the 16th century was marked by a new fundamental discovery that changed the destinies of peoples, the invention of the Dutch flight. Flight - it was a new type of ship, it had an elongated hull, high masts with perfect sailing arms and was equipped with a steering wheel. Flight significantly surpassed the Spanish caravels with its speed and maneuverability - and he gave the Dutch dominance over the seas. In 1598, the Dutch fleet broke into the Indian Ocean, in the waters, where until then the Portuguese and Spaniards dominated. For twenty years, the Dutch expelled all rivals from the seas and captured almost all maritime trade. Huge caravans of ships with Asian goods came to Amsterdam, the new trading capital of the world; from here the goods were shipped all over Europe. With the advent of the flight, mass shipments of unprecedented scale became possible, and the Dutch turned into a nation of navigators and merchants; they owned 15 thousand ships, three times more than the rest of the European nations. The colossal profits from monopoly mediation gave Holland wealth, which made it a symbol of bourgeois prosperity. The capital of the merchants was invested in industry; Thousands of manufactories worked on raw materials imported from other countries and exported their products to European markets.

European countries - first of all, England and France - tried to get rid of the Dutch mediation and build their own ocean fleet. However, Holland did not want to part with its trade monopoly; the second half of the seventeenth century entered history as the era of naval wars; Ultimately Holland was defeated and England became the new lord of the seas. The British won thanks to their achievements in shipbuilding; In 1637, the shipmaster Phineas Pett built the first three-deck battleship Royal Sovereign. It was the largest ship of those times, it had a displacement of 1,700 tons and 126 guns. By the end of the century, England had more than a hundred ships of the line. Peter I, who came to Holland to study shipbuilding in 1697, was disappointed that the Dutch masters were working on intuition, without using drawings, he went to England and finished his studies there. The English fleet dominated the seas, England changed Holland and seized the intermediary trade. Dutch merchants moved with their capital to London, took English names and became English merchants. England became a prosperous trading power - and the guarantor of this prosperity was the battleship, the invention of Phineas Pett.