At the battle of Cerisoles in 1544, Blaise de Monluc was in charge of 5-6,000 Gascon Infantry who were about to face a force of Landsknechts in Imperial service. The following extract of the battle is from his memoirs (English translation edited by L Roy. Longmans, 1971). Before the clash of pikes he addresses his men : "Gentlemen, It may be that there are not many here who have been in battle before, and therefore let me tell you that if we take our pikes by the hinder end and fight at the length of the pike, we shall be defeated; for the Germans are more dexterous at that kind of fight than we are. But you must take your pikes in the middle as the Swiss,do and run headlong to force and penetrate Into the midst of them, and you shall see how confounded they will be." When it came to push of pike . . . "The Germans came up to us at a very round rate insomuch that their battle being very great, they could not possibly follow, so that we saw great windows in their body and several Ensigns a good way behind, and all on a sudden rushed in among them, a good many of us at least, for as well on their side as ours all the first ranks, either with push of pikes or the shock at the encounter, were overturned, neither is it possible among foot to see greater fury. The second rank and the third were the cause of our victory, for the last so pushed them on that they fell In upon the heels of one another, and as ours pressed in the enemy was still driven back." The Landsknechts favoured 'fencing' with their pikes, i.e. fighting at the length of the pike, stabbing and thrusting. Montluc clearly felt that this was more skilful but on the day, the Swiss method of a compact charge by a solid determined body of pikemen was the more effective tactic. Forget your national differences which appear so often in Renaissance rules, I think this passage gives us the real difference between Landsknecht and Swiss. Back to The Gauntlet No. 13 Table of Contents Back to The Gauntlet List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by Craig Martelle Publications 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