"European Medieval Tactics (2):The Revival of Infantry..." Topic

First one was very good.

"The revival of infantry" is more the story of the French learning to accept that there was infantry outside of France that could see their knights off. And in so accepting this reality, the French began to behave as mixed armies again, until finally they were indistinguishable from their neighbors. The Germans, of course, always remained primarily an infantry force; the English (Anglo-Normans actually) were never a cavalry dominant army; ditto the Low Countries; Italy always had fine infantry; and even in cavalry dependent Spain, infantry always played a central role in pitched battles. We can thank Oman, still, for the simplistic idea that infantry in Europe generally went "out of vogue" and therefore efficiency. But even his own examples disprove his assertion that infantry languished and somehow required a "revival"….

Correct – the infantry-revolution paradigm has also been driven by a USAF desire to find a historical grounding for military revolutions and ultimately the so-called revolution in military affairs.

It requires the military historian to ignore any use of infantry outside of France, and those bits of France ruled by the kings of England ;-)

"a USAF desire to find a historical grounding for military revolutions "
???

I'm curious why do you think this is a USAF desire ?

how eslse to justify massed air power and the sheer cost of it, when the evidence remains that to win a war you need infantry on the ground.

I'm sure we can all think of the examples…

the story of the French learning to accept that there was infantry outside of France that could see their knights off.

The thing they really did not want was infantry INSIDE France that could see their knights off.
It happened in 1789.

Some thoughts:

#1 Given the period of the book, 'French' armies covered fought primarily on foot. The miletes/ment at arms/gendarmes (many of whom were knights or nobles, but never all and seldom most) were prepared and willing to deliver a decisive mounted attack IF the circumstances were correct. At times poor leadership allowed such mounted attacks with disasterous circumstances (Crecy being the obvious example)

#2 Why stick a pike vs gendarme diagram on the cover? The Swiss switched from halberds to pikes because they were being outfought frontally by DISMOUNTED Austrian men at arms….

#3 the 'infantry-revolution paradigm' pre dates the USAF (it started with reviews of Oman's work) :-)

#4 (and rather off topic)
The USAF teaches it pilots that air power is the single most effective force multiplier available. 'Bomber' Harris and 'Jimmy' Doolittle believed that bombing could be so effective that a final ground attack might not be needed. This was justified to some extent by the Japanese surrender, but SAC policy and strategy never envisioned the USAF winning a war by itself.

@Tom: The gendarme on the cover might be representative of the battle (blanking on the name, but early 16th century, iirc) where the French cavalry kept the Swiss blocks from advancing; thus allowing artillery to shoot them down until they withdrew from the field. "Nobody after this will be able to say that a French knight is no better than a rabbit in armor", or words to that effect, described the French participant's conclusion in a letter home. They made multiple "charges" against the Swiss phalanx; and each one had the same effect: the Swiss stopped, planted, and saw the French cavalry off. I think that little illustration of the horseman swatting at pike tips with his broadsword is very representative of that sort of encounter. The heavy cavalry never broke into a pike block/square; and those individuals recorded as doing so always came a very bad end….

There are a number of examples of late 15th Century and 16th Century cavalry breaking into and through pike squares while suffering everything from few to numerous losses.

The pike square was by no means immune to cavalry attack as the heavy armour worn by both men and horses provided significant protection against pikes. The halberdiers and other men with polearms standing in the middle of the square played an important role in defending against cavalry which had broken into the square and could inflict punishing losses if they stood their ground. If the men flinched back or the formation was too thin the cavalry could smash it's way through with few or no casulties as at Dreux where the Huguenot Gendarmes repeatedly broke through the 10 rank formation of the Swiss infantry.

The Swiss didn't replace the halberd with pikes, rather they used pikes in addition to the customary halberd. Halberds were still the most common weapon in the Burgundian war and even in the Italian Wars the Swiss made a lot more use of the halberd than is commonly known. In 1513 they were forced to request pikes from the Duke of Milan since the men who turned up for service in the Duchy had prefered to arm themselves with halberds rather than pikes which created a serious shortage of pikemen.

I would expect that those examples where cavalry "broke" pike formations are the few times that the infantry had not got properly formed up. When set to receive cavalry, I know of no example where the cavalry could make any headway against pike phalanxes….

Quote
"The gendarme on the cover might be representative of the battle (blanking on the name, but early 16th century, iirc) where the French cavalry kept the Swiss blocks from advancing; thus allowing artillery to shoot them down until they withdrew from the field. "Nobody after this will be able to say that a French knight is no better than a rabbit in armor", or words to that effect, described the French participant's conclusion in a letter home. They made multiple "charges" against the Swiss phalanx; and each one had the same effect: the Swiss stopped, planted, and saw the French cavalry off. I think that little illustration of the horseman swatting at pike tips with his broadsword is very representative of that sort of encounter. The heavy cavalry never broke into a pike block/square; and those individuals recorded as doing so always came a very bad end…"

Marignano 1515 perhaps, when the gendarmes successfully charged the Swiss on numerous occasions, both forcing them back and several times riding right through the pike blocks.. Contemporaries did note that the Swiss formations never broke, despite suffering heavy artillery fire (they were attacking a massed battery of 118 guns) and having enemy cavalry riding through them.

I do agree that cavalry found formed infantry virtually impossible to defeat frontally, but pikes weren't really any different to other weapons for this. Interestingly the 'charge against horse' drill for pike doesn't appear till mid/late 16th c.

"…riding right through the pike blocks…"

Okay, this has come up several times on this thread. I have never read anything of the sort before. Could someone point me to an original source that describes this phenomenon? If there really are heavy cavalrymen riding right through the pike blocks, then would these not be mere individuals with some kind of death wish? The insane horseman would be allowed "through", right through in fact, in order to be rid of him! That's my assumption anyway. To assert that entire bodies of French cavalry rode "right through" the Swiss pike blocks would be tantamount to riding them down, i.e. breaking them. But I can visualize an individual horseman being moved out of the way of, and letting him charge on by/through….

1. Pikes were not necessarily formed shoulder to shoulder. Not always the case. Disorder among the pikes also provided plenty of opportunity to break into pike formations.

2. There have been discussions on this topic on TMP almost ad nauseum complete with numerous examples. Maybe you should search for the discussions rather than repeat all that info!?!

3. If you read Italian, French and German, then you'll be able to read primary sources, as there's little in English translation.

4. Daniel S is our resident "TMP scholar" on all thing medieval and renaissance. I'm sure he'll point you in the right direction.

5. If you have to revise your Art of War rules to accommodate the new information, then it would be an opportunity to reintroduce your game to the wargaming community.

Cheers,

John

5. If you have to revise your Art of War rules to accommodate the new information, then it would be an opportunity to reintroduce your game to the wargaming community.

I was just thinking about that!

But actually, the rules handle this eventuality very well. The phalanx rules state that unless the formation has "moving bonuses" listed in the tactics section of the army list, it must stop and "plant" one impulse before the charging cavalry arrives; if the phalanx is contacted by charging cavalry while still moving it loses all of its bonuses and is treated like ordinary infantry: which means that the cavalry will keep its charge bonus and the phalanx will not get any anti-cavalry bonuses.

Btw, in our army lists the late medieval Swiss do not have "moving bonuses": this includes the period of the above-mentioned battle; and, iirc, it was the participatory descriptions of that battle that contributed to our decision to disallow "moving bonuses" to Swiss; earlier versions of the rules did allow Swiss "moving bonuses"….

lots of sources, two good ones are the biographies of Bayard published shortly after his death:

"Le loyal serviteur" (Jacques de Maille?), La très joyeuse et très plaisante histoire du gentil seigneur de Bayart, le bon chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, le gentil seigneur de Bayart (original edition printed at Paris, 1527)
Symphorien Champier, Les Gestes, ensemble la vie du preulx chevalier Bayard (Lyons, 1525)

Bayard describes leading his troops right through the Swiss on several occasions…

Early 16th c warfare was very different to mid/late 15th c fighting. Massed artillery and shot had a devastating impact on tactics.

Not formed up and "planted" Swiss pike, surely. Thinned out by artillery, yes; I can see that: a hole that the cavalry ride freely through. But that is not the same as riding into, over and through formed segments of the phalanx….

With regards to the sources two good ones for Marignano 1515 have already been mentioned. For Cerisoles/Ceresole 1544 you have Monluc and Du Bellay. Monluc is available in English. For Dreux you can find information in Coynart, Lenz and Wood who in turn footnote and/or quote the primary sources in question.

16th Century "pike squares" are not compact masses of men, there is a lot of space inside them in order to make it possible for the men to move and fight. The distance would pnly be closed up in actual fighting and you could very well find a variation through out the massive square. The front ranks could very well be closed up shoulder to shoulder while the rear ranks still mantained several feet between each rank and each file. So any horsemen penetrating into the square would have the space to force their way through but not without risk.

At Ceresole 1544 the French Gendarmes charge "quite through" the square of 5000 Spanish & German veterans, from one flank to the other but took heavy casulties in doing show while the veteran foot reformed and continued their advance, the second charge cost the French more casulties and left most of the survivors with wounded horses while the foot closed up their ranks and went on to charge and beat the Grisons foot.

So being broken through was not the same as being defeated, the French were clearly the losers in each charge at Ceresole but still were able to to break through the infantry not once but twice.

Most of the charges that broke through a pike square seems to have been made against the flank rather than the front. Dreux is the only example I know of where the break through was clearly done from the front. In all instances the infantry were cohesive, well ordered troops. (When disordered troops were broken into they usually lost cohesion and routed)

As long as the men stood their ground and reformed the foot had a good chance of surviving being broken through by the cavalry while fighting back against any cavalry inside the square. The sheer size of the formation made it possible to absorb a charge, in wargames you seldom see the Gevierthaufen outnumbering the cavalry by 10 to 1 or more as was the case in actual battle. A 5000-6000 man formation like the Swiss at Dreux could survive having 50-100 Gendarmes breaking through a part of the formation even if that section is effectivly ridden down. As long as the other parts remain cohesive and in good order the formation can reform and survive.

And men ridden down were not necissarily casulties, at Gorzno 1629 Polish hussars rode down part of the musketeer squadron led by Maximilian Teuffel but the men picked themselves up, reformed the files and continued fighting. At Kolin the entire battalion of Prussian Guards were flattend by the Austrian charge yet go back up, reformed and continued the advance. Clearly good troops could survive the experience and still fight on.

If by "planted" you mean troops using the "charge for horse" posture link
there is no evidence that it was used in the early 16th Century as has already been mentioned. Veterans like Paul Dolnstein & Urs Graf do not depict it in their works nor do other artwork from the period.

I just love talking to you, Daniel.

"Planted" is a term for "set and ready". However the spear/pike is held is immaterial, or even if there ARE spears/pikes; since good troops, i.e. those that "sneer" at a cavalry charge, stand firm regardless of weaponry. Now, if the phalanx is standing to receive it is going to be a rare event for sure for horse to break in and pass through. Your example of c. 6K versus 100 horsemen is equivalent to 100 individually based infantry on 20mm by 20mm bases versus TWO cavalry figures on 25mm by 40mm bases in our game. Of course such a small squadron could scout for a "weak spot" and ride in and right through. But they had better not stop for anything! And the end result? If they give better than they take, they might emerge with fewer men and inflict insignificant casualties on the total mass of the "square". The cavalry could repeat this numerous times and never cause enough casualties to require a morale check. So this is not the picture I was holding in my mind at the start of this topic. Rather, I was envisioning a full strength cavalry assault with no less than 1K horsemen on such an infantry formation. And in this case, I do not see a phalanx that is "planted" being penetrated by horsemen unless the phalanx fails in significant segments. It is this kind of "all or nothing" assault that our rules address: and it is just this kind of expensive assault which I know of no examples for being pressed to the breaking point. Not frontally at any rate. The best example I can think of to show how cavalry win such an encounter is Roosebeke 1382, where a phalanx not that unlike the Swiss was countered by dismounted French men at arms frontally, while significant mounted wings assaulted the exposed flanks and crushed their way in.

You are right, to point out that "most" successes were against flanks and rear: which explains why the Swiss stopped advancing at Marignano and faced the cavalry threat, i.e. formed square….

At Marignano the Swiss were stopped by the artillery, and they didn't 'form square'. Interestingly the only examples of Swiss forming an all round formation that I can recall are in early battles against dismounted Austrian men at arms.

It's worth noting that most of the 16th c examples show the 'ridden through' foot simply carry on!

Numbers can be deceptive as well..
At Cresole the 5000 foot have a frontage of 200 men c 400m.
The 2 companies of gendarmes (400 horse) have a frontage of 200 men c 400m. The huge differences in unit depths are the thing that is really hard to handle in figure games.

Still back to the topic… :-)

I'm left wondering what remains for this new book to cover now…

#3 the 'infantry-revolution paradigm' pre dates the USAF (it started with reviews of Oman's work) :-)

#4 (and rather off topic)
The USAF teaches it pilots that air power is the single most effective force multiplier available. 'Bomber' Harris and 'Jimmy' Doolittle believed that bombing could be so effective that a final ground attack might not be needed. This was justified to some extent by the Japanese surrender, but SAC policy and strategy never envisioned the USAF winning a war by itself.

The idea predates it (Roberts 1956), but the paradigm has been driven by a modern military agenda. You don't to need to sit through many lectures by senior USAF officers and defence contractors for this to be very clear. Clifford Rogers has shown a great deal of candour on the reception in certain circles of his view of an infantry revolution in the HYW.

I should get around to reading David's first volume because I have the feeling that he's given it a title that goes down well with the pro-revolution crowd, but then uses examples that poor cold water on it ;-)

David's an old style Arabist at heart… I'd suggest some of his more comprehensive books rather than the Ospreys though.

As part of the USAF/Contractor jungle I think I know where you are coming from, I feel differently, but then I'm not trying to sell 300,000,000 USD aircraft :-)

Fair one of both counts ;-)

At Marignano the Swiss were stopped by the artillery, and they didn't 'form square'.

Really, where did this come from? The description is one of "double-teaming" on the Swiss: the Swiss were advancing on the artillery, the French cavalry charged, the Swiss stopped and "planted"; the cavalry pulled off; the artillery continued to plaster the Swiss where they stood; the Swiss started to move toward the guns; the cavalry charged; the Swiss stopped and faced the cavalry, etc. Then finally after failing to reach the guns, because they must per force stop to face the threat of further cavalry charges, the Swiss withdraw from the field; all the while being continually plastered by cannon shot and facing cavalry charges. If the Swiss did not "form square", in order to face the French cavalry threat, what would you call what the Swiss did?…

The sources describe the Swss carrying on forwards, despite the cavalry

Isn't that as Oman describes it? The square moves while the cavalry pull off; the cavalry ready for a charge; the square stops, faces and plants; the cavalry wait while the shot galls the square: the square begins to move; the cavalry charge and the square stops. Etc. "Thirty good charges" were delivered that day, according to the king writing to his mother. I see no evidence that the Swiss were moving AS the cavalry contacted them….