Phases of Campaigning

Armies during this period, prior to 1500, were involved in localized warfare. Three general phases of campaigning have been selected based on the experiences of the Italian Condottieri, the Swiss in French employ and the Spanish, in order to portray the evolution of mercenary warfare. Each phase was more advanced than prior one, but each was influenced by logistical and command restraints with the first and last phases commonly devoid of tactical level flanking. These campaigns were waged between seasoned troops (i.e. mercenaries) and were marked by the fact that they were waging war as a form of business.

The first phase was a localized in northern Italy from the late 12th century to the end of the 15th century. Campaigns were waged between the Condottieri whose leaders conspired to keep their losses low. These mercenaries relied upon feudal - like shock cavalry and engaged in defensive campaigns. Their battles appeared to rely more on feudal tactics than on dynastic ones though infantry in field fortifications served as their maneuver base. The Condottieri took prisoners for ransom reminiscent of the feudal concept of chivalry among equals. Early siege cannon and a few infantry were employed during this phase so a means of taking castles did exist, although it was a painfully slow process. These Condottieri forces rarely engaged each other in frontal field battles and, for this reason, tactical flanking was rarely implemented. An extreme example of the farce these campaigns could take, though not a universal characterization of them, can be seen in the example of the battle of Zagonara in 1423 as sardonically described by Machiavelli:

Nevertheless, in this great defeat famous throughout all Italy no deaths occurred, except those of Ludovico degli Obizi, and two of his people, who having fallen from their horses were drowned in the morass. 1

The second phase of dynastic campaigns was fully dynastic in its infantry shock tactics and resulted in offensive campaigns based on the Swiss schiltron. This phase spans from the early 14th century to the early 16th century. The Swiss schiltrons and German Landsknecht  squares engaged in head on shock actions which were resolved by the "push of the pike." These squares were employed in purely Swiss armies in up to three echelons with the later ones able to flank the enemy who were fixed by the vanguard. In French employ one or more was combined with modified feudal shock cavalry led by one or more mercenary captains. Each captain was in charge of 100 "lances." A lance was a tactical unit of 6 mounted men centered around a heavy cavalryman supported by 2 or 3 archers, a page or two and a knife-armed soldier, known as a coutilier.

Missile infantry, first using the crossbow and then the firearm, did exist but only played a lesser part in these campaigns, representing at best one-fourth of the Swiss troops and at worst one-tenth. The older feudal fortification, the castle, was reduced during this phase by the siege artillery weapon system based on the cannon -- a slow process when conducted by the initial models and a relatively easy process when conducted with the upgraded French model. For this reason, sieges would not normally tax the logistical needs of an army since they could be settled by cannon and not starvation.

The third phase of dynastic campaigns was based on the Spanish tercio organization (the Spanish school) utilizing pike and shot (an earlier attempt by the Spaniards in reintroducing the old Roman legion structure built around short sword and shield had failed).

This phase covered the period from the early to mid-16th century to the mid-17th century. Campaigns became defensive in nature now that firearms were dominating the battlefield -- the Spanish musket was a heavy weapon with a slow firing rate and low portability. To keep up a steady rate of musket fire from eight to ten ranks were required when conducting the countermarch. The pike in turn had become a defensive weapon to protect the shot which had gone from one sixth of a formation in the Italian Wars to one- third of it in the tercios of 1534 to one-half by the end of the century.

Rise of Shot

Compounding the fact that the shock firepower of the infantry base was greatly diminished with the rise of the proportion of shot, the problem existed of the pike being separated from the shot. While useless in shock action, shot was greatly needed to keep the combined arms cavalry from using the caracole tactic against the pike. This resulted in reduced maneuvering ability for the infantry -- flanking became generally out of the question. For tercio based military forces, victory and defeat in field warfare now became uncertain with defeat disastrous. From the perspective of a mercenary leader, field warfare was, by all means, to be avoided:

Greater circumspection -- or pessimism -- apparently marked the conduct of the more experienced soldiers who tended to agree with each other as to the odds of winning and losing and sought to avoid offensive frontal battles. 2

With the advent of the trace italienne, siege warfare also shifted over to a defensive advantage. A siege generally wore down the attacker who would starve before the defender and for this reason was not normally successful. During this phase we see:

...the virtual disappearance of major battles from European warfare during the century which separated the battle of Muhlberg in 1534 from that in Breitenfeld in 1631. Only inthe indecisive battle of Niewport in the Netherlands in 1600,and the all too decisive battle of White Mountain in 1621 when Bohemia was eliminated as an independent actor on the European stage, stand out as major exceptions. What we do see, and will continue to see for another century or so, is a long succession of sieges, with battle, when it occurred at all, as subsidiary to the major business of investing and relieving fortresses. 3

Command in armies varied greatly during this period though three articles of equipment of these armies appear standardized. Mercenary companies and regiments distinguished themselves from each other by means of gaudy dress. A woodcut done by Sebald Beham in the early to mid-16th century of a Landsknecht arquebusier with a bare right thigh is one such example of this distinctive fashion. Another form of equipment was the drum which allow drill to be conducted and was added to these armies in the fifteenth century. The last form of equipment was paper, supported by the invention of movable type, whose use was made feasible now that the the clergy's monopoly over the ability to read and write had been broken. Paper was used to keep track of men on the company rosters, supplies, payments and contracts.

Marching, counter marching, loading and firing, and the caracole were all important drills for command and control purposes and to implement the tactics of mercenary warfare. They were not institutionalized by the administrative body of the political community but instead were left up to the mercenary formations to be proficient in. Since the dynastic princes did not honor their sides of the employment contracts by means of steady pay, the mercenary companies felt no compulsion to be well-drilled -- the Swiss, of course, being an exception to this rule in both cases.

Commanders and Morale

Military commanders during this period were more important as a means of boosting the morale of the friendly troops they fought along side of, as they had been in the feudal period, than as an integral force in the command and control of the units of an army since, once deployed, little could be done to alter the course of a battle. This resulted from the fact these mercenary troops in the schiltron and tercios tended to have primitive unit articulation, low drilling skills and their formations were based on shock warfare:

The greater the reliance on shock, the shorter the duration of the engagement and the less subject to overall control it was; the more important missile power, the easier it was for the commander to stand back at some point...and direct his forces to engage or disengage. 4.

During this period the basis of modern infantry tactics, rank structure and unit articulation developed with the Spanish tercios. The tercios are considered to represent the dynastic army taken to its highest form (the Swiss were better drilled but technologically inferior) and exist in a gray region separated from the early absolutist army only by certain characteristics (irregular pay vs regular pay, irregular drill vs modern drill, square shock based formation vs linear missile based formation, partially-institutionalized vs institutionalized army) with Maurice of Nassau's Dutch army of the late 16th century considered an early form of the absolutist army.

The tercios were large formations of regimental size comprised of from ten to twelve companies each containing about 250 men. These represented the former free companies which were now no longer free (hence the prefix was dropped) but were still independent administrative units and therefore only partially institutioalized. A number of these companies formed a battalion which was a tactical unit in the form of a rectangle. From the feudal period the knight and sergents -- in essence both classes of officers as already shown -- retained their positions as the officers and non-commissioned officers in charge of the army's enlisted ranks. The term "commission" referred to the profit made for the entrepreneur transacting business for another and the term "enlisted" referred to a man on the lists of an army.

For the dynastic period, the conception of the soldier (the rationalization of what a soldier represents and hence why he fights) is based on the perception of the military entrepreneurs and independent contractors who see war as a form of business and thus themselves as businessmen. As we have seen, this conception mirrored how campaigns were fought.

The ethical responsibilities of the soldier (his rules of behavior) can most readily be seen in the concepts of monopoly and breech of contract. The concept of attempting to monopolize the military contracting business can be viewed in its three phases (mirroring the three phases of campaigns already explored) designated as fight-fixing (elimination of the competition and refusal to engage in field combat).

Fixing the Fight

Fight-fixing was the preferred method of the Italian Condottieri whose captains were adept at prolonging campaigns, making sure loses were low and preferring to take prisoners for ransom. This form of monopoly worked quite well until competition developed. Elimination of the competition is the Swiss method of monopoly and, it should be noted, was the means to deal with the Italian Condottieri in 1494 when Charles the VIII of France invaded Italy. This concept is supported by the well known butchery of prisoners by the Swiss and the fact that when engaged with their chief business rivals, the German Landsknechts, these battles were waged by the Swiss in an even fiercer fashion than normal and were reciprocated by the Landsknechts. The term for such an engagement was "bad war." After the demise of the Swiss military monopoly in the early 16th century, competing mercenary groups throughout Europe shared the monopoly of war by refusing to fight in frontal combat -- the odds of victory and defeat were highly uncertain. These groups had realized they were counter-balanced by the firearms that had developed (hackbuts, heavy muskets and pistols) which resulted in their refusal to engage each other directly in field combat except under the most pressing of conditions such as in the face of imminent starvation or entrapment against an obstacle. The concept of breach of contract resulted in mercenary troops who either deserted or rebelled if unpaid. Many mercenary troops would desert individually. In the case of the Swiss, the whole unit would declare their contract breached and march away, living up to their motto "No money, No Swiss." Rebellions by unpaid troops were numerous and resulted in many atrocities as did those conducted by unemployed mercenary companies wandering the countryside.

The end product of these material and ethical realities which compromise and define mercenary warfare represents a number of challenges for historical miniature gaming. The biggest challenge stems from the perception that war was being waged as a form of business. This era in European history represents a unique period which bridges the expanse between the feudal and the modern worlds. Feudal society and military structures have been dismantled in the face of a new energy basis for human civilization founded on mechanical motive sources.

Until the reinstitutionalization of the army by the state during the absolutist period, war as we have seen was dominated by military entrepenuers. These individuals considered their troops "working capital" which if killed off represented a devastating business loss. Because of this perception, combat took on a different function than that which exists in our modern age.

Modelling Mercenary Combat

For historical miniatures to properly model mercenary combat, variables are thus needed to simulate this aspect of war as business. These variables may include some sort of "business risk" morale for the various military commanders in an army which causes them to withdraw their company if their working capital is overly threatened and a troop morale modifier based on payment history. Few commanders are dense enough to expect much from unpaid mercenaries. Some sort of conspiracy factor which measures a military entreprenuer's willingness to defraud his employer would also prove quite useful. Numerous examples exist of mercenary captains raising hollow companies which maximized profit by being fleshed out only prior to the employer's inspection with whatever dregs of humanity existed in the neighborhood and then, after the inspection was over, once again returned to their wraith like nature.

Also the phase or period of mercenary warfare, many of which were not covered in this essay and are time and geographic region specific, which is to be simulated greatly influences the tensions between playability and realism. For instance recreating ItalianCondottieri warfare based predominately on fight fixing would be incredibly difficult to simulate. Opposing players, or teams of players, would find little enjoyment in being engaged in a table top battle in which they conspire to "put on a good show" while at the same time ensuring that everyone's loses are kept to a minimum.

The Swiss and their German brethren have great potential, on the other hand, for historical miniatures because they actively seek to eliminate the competition. Of course, once the schiltron is locked in combat, the battle as we have seen will be decided by the push of the pike which leaves the table top commander with little to do but calculate losses. Still, the deployment of multiple schiltrons or cavarly forces for flanking maneuvers makes this phase of mercenary warfare quite playable while at the same time relatively realistic in its recreation of history.

Mercenary warfare dominated by pike and shot (the Spanish school) unfortunately posses problems, though, because of the unwillingness of commanders to engage each other in battle. In this instance, the potential gain won by victory in no way equals the potential loss that would result from a defeat. A victory in many ways is meaningless to a mercenary commander anyway because it means that some of his troops had to die to obtain it. A military stalemate is far better because it doesn't require casulaties or the consumption of costly powder and shot. Still, a commander who constantly dodges a fight can end up unemployed so some potential exists for playability. Business is business after all.

Overall, dynastic warfare is far more amiable to historical miniatures than feudal warfare since the conduct of war is less removed both temporally and ethically from our era. This does not mean, though, that the concepts of realism and playability are totally compatible. Each phase or specific form of mercenary warfare that existed must be looked at on a scenario-by-scenario basis.

END NOTES

1. Niccolo Machiavelli, History of Florence . Revised Ed. (New York: The Colonial Press, 1901), p. 180.
2. Archer Jones, The Art of War in the Western World. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), p. 204.
3. Michael Howard, War in European History. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 34.
4. Martin Van Creveld, Command in War. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 51.

SELECTED REFERENCES

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The History of the Ingenious Gentlemen Don Quixote of La Mancha. Translated by P.A. Motteux. (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1908).
Trevor N. Dupuy, The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare. (New York: Da Capo Press, 1984).
David Kaiser, Politics and War: European Conflict from Phillip II to Hitler. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990).
H.W. Koch, The Rise of Modern Warfare. (New York: Crescent Books, 1981).
William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982).
Lynn Montross, War Through the Ages . Revised and Enlarged Ed. (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1946).
Robert L. O'Connell, Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons and Aggression. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).
Sir Charles Oman, A History of Warfare in the Sixteenth Century. (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1937).
Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
Fritz Redlich, The German Military Enterpriser and His Work Force, 2 Vols. A Study in European Economic and Social History, No. 47 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag GMBH, 1964/1965).
Theodore Ropp, War in the Modern World (New York: Collier Books, 1962).
Alfred Vagts, A History of Militarism: Romance and Realities of a Profession. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1937).
Martin Van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977).
Martin Van Creveld,  Command in War. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985).

The author received his Ph.D. in political science from the Claremont Graduate School. He has published over thirty gaming articles and reviews. Material concerning mercenary warfare used in this article was taken from a chapter of his dissertation concerning dynastic weapon systems. ) Copyright 1993 Dr. Robert J. Bunker

Section 1: Age of Mercenaries