"Meet the Landsknechts – Wild Facts About the Most...." Topic

…. Murderous Mercenaries of the Renaissance.

"DURING THE 16th Century the most feared soldiers on Europe's battlefields were the landsknechts. These German mercenaries had such a reputation for unprincipled, ruthless violence one chronicler remarked that the devil refused to let landsknechts into hell because he was so afraid of them. This infamy was not undeserved as it was not unknown for entire regiments of landsknechts to swap sides in the middle of a battle if they were offered more money or to desert en masse when there was no more gold to pay them. So who were these flamboyant soldiers-of-fortune who terrorized Christendom for more than a century…."
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Amicalement
Armand

What examples are there of regiments changing sides in a battle?

No offence to the author of the piece, but this is really a puff for his novel The Devil's Band, which is no doubt worth reading as a novel, but is probably not the best source for historical accuracy?

Glup…!

Amicalement
Armand

I was thinking the same thing, Swampster. I can't think of any examples.

Can't recall a regiment defecting mid-battle, the closest thing is the ruse employed by the Catholic Leauge landsknechts at Arques 1589 who pretended to defect to get into the Royalist earthworks. As the ruse was successfull the sitation did not raise suspicions but this was at the very end of the Landsknecht period as well as during a religious war.

But in the classic period I can't remember an actual defection in the heat of battle. Rather you get men like Jakob von Ems ("Jacob Empser" in Oman) who chose to defy an order from his sovreign rather than sully his honor and reputation by abandoning the French army on the eve of the battle of Ravenna 1512.

Now landsknechts could be very difficult to handle if unpaid and mutiny and desertion was not uncommon in such situations but most of the outright defections such as garrisons delivery a fortified position to the enemy that I can remember take place in the later half of the 16th C and in very specific circumstances.

Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand

Were Landsknechts the most feared soldiers on Europe's battlefields during the 1500s? I suspect they were not very popular with the civilian population when they moved through the area, especially when unpaid. However on the battlefield would they really be more feated than the Swiss, the Spanish, the Ottomans, the Tatars?

I doubt they would be more feared than the Spanish, since after the 1530's the Spanish more or less set the standard for infantry troops till the Thirty Years War. Nevertheless, the Landsknechts were definitely quality troops that were employed almost every conceivable place in Renaissance Europe.