How did joining an early modern military work? e.g. if I wanted

You don't just "become a winged hussar." You role is determined by your social class. Cavalry were aristocrats.

>>2540956
Okay but not all aristocrats were hussars, right? How did an aristocrat end up joining a hussar unit?

>>2540607
You were usually enslaved and forced to fight.

>>2541143
>(You)

>>2540607
They were a mix of mercenaries and noblemen who had an obligation to fight. Mercenaries were often private armies that you could rent, they had their own structure and ranks that kings rarely changed. However, not all mercenaries fought only for the highest bidder. Some were closer to a modern professional national army, such as the Landsknecht or the Karoleans who were fiercely loyal to their kings.

Tactics changed a lot during this time, in short, marksmen and cannons became more and more effective and numerous. For most of the period though the main 3 type of soldiers were pikeman, gunners and cavalry - the main goal of the pikemen was to protect the gunners from cavalry. Eventully though pikemen were replaced by bayonets.

As it was stated before, cavalry was often reserved for the nobility. By that time though most armies had a majority of infantry, mostly mercenaries. You could join their companies in any recruitment campaigns but their are reports of mercenary captains forcing men into service.

>>2541139
family owned horses and shit?

>>2540607
In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth you generally had a so-called "social" recruitment system.

The king or a hetman would give a nobleman a letter (list przypowiedni) naming him a commander (rotmistrz) and authorising him to recruit a given number of men from a specific area (usually a unit of 50-200 people called a rota or chorągiew). The rotmistrz would go to that area, get in touch with local noblemen and recruit some of them. Each of the noblemen (having joined the unit as a "towarzysz") would be responsible for recruiting two or three additional men to fight at his side (as "pocztowi") and would be responsible for equipping himself and his companions, arranging for some servants etc.

Ideally a rotmistrz would be someone with a good standing in the community he was to recruit from, although nobles had a social obligation to become soldiers if able in any case. On that note though, not everyone involved actually *had* to be a noble. You may well expect the pocztowi to be commoners armed by a noble towarzysz.

Many rich families in the Commonwealth also fielded their own private units which were usually recruited in a similar manner.

>>2541448
*Note that the recruitment was ultimately entirely voluntary, making the social element particularly prominent.

>>2541457
*Further a towarzysz didn't have to be a nobleman either. Serving as a hussar towarzysz was one of the only semi-reliable ways to earn an ennoblement, though it was very costly since you had to arm yourself and your pocztowi to an appropriate standard.

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>>2540607

>>2541751
Is this some ebin ancient poles were actually germanic meme ?

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>>2541761
We wuz Saramtains white boi

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>>2541950
KURWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

>>2541515
>>2541448
>>2541457
interesting, thanks for this

>>2540607
Sometimes i feel like i'm the only person on this board who thinks Winged Hussar's uniforms looked shit.

>>2541139
>>2540607
You go sign up to the military like today whats so hard about it

>>2540956
>>2541139
Nobles, not aristrocrats

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>>2541290
>Landsknechts
>loyal

More or less like today. Early modern armies were usually payed professionals who signed up to serve in army because there was nothing else that was open to them. So the riff-raff, impoverished commoners, that kind of people.

Of course when it was necessary there was non-voluntary joining in the form of draft. A drafted guy usually could excuse himself from the service if he had money to pay. Then they'd just get the replacement.

These armies were of course rather small. Mass mobilizations of hundreds of thousands of people, even millions, started with French revolution, when the young French Republic instituted its famous levée en masse for defence of the Revolution, thus dragging almost all able-bodied men into the army.

Napoleon's Grand Army had some 600,000 men at the peak of its power. Such numbers were unimaginable in 16th, 17th or 18th century.

>>2541290
Mercenaries literally both sacked Constantinople and Rome, if anything they're the biggest mistake of military practice ever

Fucking German mercenaries especially