In a previous article in THE COURIER (Vol. III, No. 6), I discussed aspects of warfare in the last half of the 15th century, particularly that which involved Swiss armies, and presented some historical scenarios of that period for possible use by the wargamer. This article extends that discussion through the next fifty years, explores the transition from late medieval to early modern warfare, and presents some scenarios in which those who have no Swiss troops may gain some measure of revenge. The rapidity with which the decisive clash of heavy cavalry was replaced by the combined arms maneuvering of the pike and shot era is strikingfor Fornovo (1494) is by any measure a classic late medieval battle, at which Charlemagne would not have felt out of place, while Ceresole (1544) is a definite forerunner of the "Early Modern" age, where a Cromwell or even Marlboro would have been more at home with the problems of command. The cast of characters of the period was described at length in Don Featherstone's earlier article in THE COURIER (Vol. III, No. 1). As a quick review, the French were a typical late medieval army, with gendarmes of outstanding armour, training, morale (and yes, even discipline), "supported" by an infantry that was the opposite in all respects. Attempts to create native shock infantry did not fare well, thus the need for Swiss or landsknecht infantry, while for the most part the French foot were crossbowmen who served as spectators. French artillery was Europe's best. The army of Marignano was typical-2500 genclarmarie, 1500 light horse, 6,000 Gascon foot, 4,000 French foot, 8-9,000 landsknechts, 72 guns, and 5 companies of Italian mercenaries. The Swiss, of course, still depended on huge deep pike columns augmented by halberdiers and handgunners both quickly being replaced at this time by arquebusiers. Training and morale were still superb, but while discipline within the ranks was still outstanding, the same could hardly be said for the relationship between mercenary forces and their French employers. The Imperialists (as in Holy Roman Empire) originally combined late medieval cavalry with Swiss style landsknecht infantry. The Spanish had developed a fairly sophisticated combined arms concept including knights, light cavalry, pikemen, sword and bucklermen, and arquebusiers. After 1515 Charles V united Spain and the empire, the landsknechts joined the ranks of the colunelas. Armies of the Italian Wars were rounded out, not surprisingly, by contingents from the various Italian states, mostly crossbowmen but also condottiere heavy cavalry, stradiots and other light cavalry, and the odd unit of pike. Their value may be measured by Machiavelli's observation, "The third type of army is one in which there exists neither a natural ardour, nor yet discipline to supplement it; as is the case with Italian armies in our day, which are quite useless and never win unless they come across an army which happens to -run away." The strategic course or "meaning" of the Italian Wars, what little there was of either, has little bearing on the tactical situations. Suffice it to say that for 50 years the French attempted to impose their dominion on various parts of Italy, from Milan to Naples, but whenever they threatened to succeed, they were opposed by Spain, the Empire, the Swiss, Venice, The Pope, etc., etc. French aspirations were all the more absurd as they had no chance to control the sea route to Italy. At Cerignola (1503) a Franco-Swiss army was opposed by the brilliant Gonsalvo de Cordoba and his early colunelas. Gonsalvo set up a defensive position behind trenches, and easily repulsed the ill-conceived direct assault. This was due entirely to the effective small arms fire of the arquebusiers, the artillery becoming us eless early on due to a powder explosion. In a rematch later that year Gonsalvo found himself badly outmanned, so waged a strategic retreat, ending up digging in for the winter behind the security of the swollen Garigliano River. The French army began to melt away. Fording the river upstream, Gonsalvo caught the French army unprepared (remember that phrase, it will occur again) and defeated them piecemeal. Ravenna Ravenna (April 11, 1512) is best summed up in Shellabarger's terse comment, "by all accounts, Cardona's tactics were execrable." The Spanish commander, with an inferior force, forced a battle to lift a siege that was about to break up anyway, since the Emperor had recalled the landsknechts that were the bulk of the French infantry and Ravenna was holding up well. Cardona set up a "defensive position" within the loop of a river across the mouth of which he dug a trench with a causeway at each end for cavalry sorties. Had the French attempted a direct assault Cardona may have emulated Gonsalvo's success, but as the Spaniards were absurdly exposed and virtually surrounded the French merely placed guns to their front and rear and proceeded to pound away. The artillery barrage from both sides was horrendous -- reportedly 2,000 French infantry, over 10%, fell before the battle commenced. While the Spanish foot was protected by entrenchments, their cavalry was simply being blown away. In desperation they charged out the causeways where, after a reasonably good struggle against the vastly superior gendarmes, they were driven off the field. While the cavalry melees were proceeding, the French infantry, consisting of home-grown pikemen as well as landsknechts, were repulsed twice at the trenches. A third assault, combined with charges by the victorious French cavalry down the causeways and onto the Spanish flanks caused resistance to crumble. Despite the slovenly Spanish tactics, Ravenna was an interesting and significant affair. Compare the effectiveness of artillery to that present at Grandson, only forty years previously. There the foremost artillerist in Europe had a dense mass of 10,000 men halted directly in front of his guns, yet was so convinced that they would make no impression that he retired them as part of his ill-starred feigned retreat. Note also that the French heavy cavalrymen still carried the day, though he had to share the glory. Ravenna turned out to be a fruitless victory, since the following year at Novara the Swiss, charging out of the woods and catching the French unprepared, routed them out of Italy once again. Novara was a fine example of the tactical abilities of a Swiss army--a night long forced march, and a dawn attack, right through the center of the French camp before they could react. A good account of the engagement should be compulsory reading for those who labor under the antediluvian supposition that the Swiss approached a battle the way that lemmings approach the ocean. More Battles 16th Century Battles Introduction 16th Century Battles Marignano Sep 13-14, 1515 16th Century Battles Pavia Feb 24, 1525 Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. IV #6 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1983 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com