Part 9

The unbreakable square took two forms, the _wagenburg_ with artillery, and the infantry mass with pikes. The first was no more, in the beginning, than an expedient for the safe and rapid crossing of wider stretches of open country than would have been possible for dismounted men, whom the cavalry headed off as soon as they ventured far enough from the shelter of walls. The men rode not on horses but on carriages, and the carriages moved over the plains in laager formation, the infantrymen standing ready with halbert and voulge or short stabbing spear, and the gunners crouching around the long barrelled two-pounders and the "ribaudequins"--the early machine guns--which were mounted on the wagons. These _wagenburgen_ combined in themselves the due proportions of mobility and passive defence, and in the skilled hands of Ziska they were capable of the boldest offensive. But such a tactical system depended first of all on drill, for the armoured cavalry would have crowded through the least gap in the wagon line, and the necessary degree of drill in those days could only be attained by an army which had both a permanent existence and some bond of solidarity more powerful than the incentive to plunder--that is, in practice, it was only attained in full by the Hussite insurgents. The cavalry, too, learned its lesson, and pitted mobile three-pounders against the foot-soldiers' one- and two-pounders, and the _wagenburg_ became no more than a helpless target. Thus when, not many years after the end of the Hussite wars, the Wars of the Roses eliminated the English model and the English tactics from the military world of Europe, the French system of fire tactics--masses of archers, arblasters and handgun-men, with some spearmen and halberdiers to stiffen them--was left face to face with that of the Swiss and Landsknechts, the system of the "long pike."

The Swiss.

A series of victories ranging from Morgarten (1315) to Nancy (1477) had made the Swiss the most renowned infantry in Europe. Originally their struggles with would-be oppressors had taken the form, often seen elsewhere, of arraying solid masses of men, united in purpose and fidelity to one another rather than by any material or tactical cohesion. Like the men of Bruges at Courtrai, the Swiss had the advantage of broken ground, and the still greater advantage of being opposed by reckless feudal cavalry. Their armament at this stage was not peculiar--voulges, gisarmes, halberts and spears--though they were specially adept in the use of the two-handed sword. But as time went on the long pike (said to have originated in Savoy or the Milanese about 1330) became more and more popular until at last on the verge of their brief ascendancy (about 1475-1515) the Swiss armed as much as one quarter of their troops with it. The use of firearms made little or no progress amongst them, and the Swiss mercenaries of 1480, like their forerunners of Morgarten and Sempach, fought with the _arme blanche_ alone. But in a very few years after the Swiss nation had become soldiers of fortune _en masse_, the more open lands of Swabia entered into serious and bitter competition with them. From these lands came the Landsknechts, whose order was as strong as, and far less unwieldy than, that of the Swiss, whose armament included a far greater proportion of firearms, and who established a regimental system that left a permanent mark on army organization. The Landsknecht was the prototype of the infantryman of the 16th and 17th centuries, but his right to indicate the line of evolution had to be wrung from many rivals.

The long pike.

The year 1480 indeed was a turning-point in military history. Within the three years preceding it the battles of Nancy and Guinegate had destroyed both the old feudalism of Charles the Bold and the new cavalry tactics of the French gendarmerie. The former was an anachronism, while the latter, when the great wars came to an end and there was no longer either a national impulse or a national leader, had lapsed into the old vices of ransom and plunder. With these, on the same fields, the _franc-archer_ system of infantry tactics perished ignominiously. It rested, as we know, on the principle that the fire of the infantry was to be combined with and completed by the shock of the gendarmerie, and when the latter were found wanting as at Guinegate, the masses of archers and arblasters, which were only feebly supported by a few handfuls of pikemen and halberdiers, were swept away by the charge of some heavy battalions of Swabian and Flemish pikes. Guinegate was the _début_ of the Landsknecht infantry as Nancy was that of the Swiss, and the lesson could not be misread. Louis XI. indeed hanged some of his _franc-archers_ and dismissed the rest, and in their place raised "bands" of regular infantry, one of which bore for the first time the historic name of _Picardie_. But these "bands" were not self-contained. Armed for the most part with _armes de jet_ they centred on the 6000 Swiss pikemen whom Louis XI., in 1480, took into his service, and for nearly fifty years thereafter the French foot armies are always composed of two elements, the huge battalions of Swiss or Landsknechts,[5] armed exclusively with the long pike (except for an ever-decreasing proportion of halberts, and a few arquebuses), and for their support and assistance, French and mercenary "bands."

The Italian wars of 1494-1544, in which the principles of fire and shock were readjusted to meet the conditions created by firearms, were the nursery of modern infantry. The combinations of Swiss, Landsknechts, Spanish "tercios" and French "bands" that figured on the battlefields of the early 16th century were infinitely various. But it is not difficult to find a thread that runs through the whole.

The Italian Wars, 1494-1525.

The essence of the Swiss system was solidity. They arrayed themselves in huge oblongs of 5000 men and more, at the corners of which, like the tower bastions of a 16th-century fortress, stood small groups of arquebusiers. The Landsknechts and the Romagnols of Italy, imitated and rivalled them, though as a rule developing more front and less depth. At this stage solidity was everything and fire-power nothing. At Fornuovo (1495) the mass of arquebusiers and arblasters in the French army did little or nothing; it was the Swiss who were _l'espérance de l'ost_. At Agnadello or Vailá in 1509 the ground and the "encounter-battle" character of the engagement gave special chances of effective employment to the arquebusiers on either side. Along the front the Venetian marksmen, secure behind a bank, picked off the leaders of the enemy as they came near. On the outer flank of the battle the bands of Gascon arquebusiers, which would otherwise have been relegated to an unimportant place in the general line of battle, lapped round the enemy's flank in broken ground and produced great and almost decisive effect. But this was only an afterthought of the king of France and Bayard. In the rest of the battle the huge masses of Swiss pikes were thrown upon the enemy much as the old feudal cavalry had been, regardless of ditches, orchards and vineyards.

Then for a moment the problem was solved, or partially solved, by the artillery. From Germany the material, though not--at least to the same extent--the principle, of the _wagenburg_ penetrated, in the first years of the 16th century, to Italy and thence to France. Thus by degrees a very numerous and exceedingly handy light artillery--"carts with gonnes," as they were called in England--came into play on the Italian battlefields, and took over from the dying _franc-archer_ system the work of preparing the assault by fire. For mere skirmishing the Swiss and Landsknechts had arquebusiers enough, without needing to call on the masses of Gascons, &c., and _pari passu_ with the development of this artillery, the "bands," other than Swiss and Landsknechts, began to improve themselves into pikemen and halberdiers. At Ravenna (1512) the bands of Gascony and Picardy, as well as the French _aventuriers_ (the "bands of Piedmont," afterwards the second senior regiment of the French line) fought in the line of battle shoulder to shoulder with the Landsknechts. On this day the fire action of the new artillery was extraordinarily murderous, ploughing lanes in the immobile masses of infantry. At Marignan the French gendarmerie and artillery, closely and skilfully combined, practically destroyed the huge masses of the Swiss, and so completely had "infantry" and "fire" become separate ideas that on the third day of this tremendous battle we find even the "bands of Piedmont" cutting their way into the Swiss masses.

The Spanish infantry and the arquebus.

But from this point the lead fell into the hands of the Spaniards. These were originally swift and handy light infantry, capable--like the Scottish Highlanders at Prestonpans and Falkirk long afterwards--of sliding under the forest of pikes and breaking into the close-locked ranks with buckler and stabbing sword. For troops of this sort the arquebus was an ideal weapon, and the problem of self-contained infantry was solved by Gonsalvo de Cordoba, Pescara and the great Spanish captains of the day by intercalating small closed bodies of arquebusiers with rather larger, but not inordinately large, bodies of pikes. These arquebusiers formed separate, fully organized sections of the infantry regiment. In close defence they fought on the front and flanks of the pikes, but more usually they were pushed well to the front independently, their speed and excellent fire discipline enabling them to do what was wholly beyond the power of the older type of firing infantry--to take advantage of ground, to run out and reopen fire during a momentary pause in the battle of lance and pike, and to run back to the shelter of their own closed masses when threatened by an oncoming charge. When this system of tactics was consecrated by the glorious success of Pavia (1525), the "cart with gonnes" vanished and the system of fighting everywhere and always "at push of pike" fell into the background.

16th Century-tactics.

The lessons of Pavia can be read in Francis I.'s instructions to his newly formed Provincial (militia) Legions in 1534 and in the battle of Cerisoles ten years later. The "legion" was ordered to be composed of six "bands"--battalions we should call them now, but in those days the term "battalion" was consecrated to a gigantic square of the Swiss type--each of 800 pikes (including a few halberts) and 200 arquebusiers. The pikes, 4800 strong, of each legion were grouped in one large battalion, and covered on the front and flanks by the 1200 arquebuses, the latter working in small and handy squads. These "legions" did not of course count as good troops, but their organization and equipment, designed deliberately in peace time, and not affected by the coming and going of soldiers of fortune, represent therefore the theoretically perfect type for the 16th century. Cerisoles represents the system in practice, with veteran regular troops. On the side of the French most of the arquebuses were grouped on the right wing, in a long irregular line of companies or strong squads, supported at a moderate distance by companies or small battalions of "corselets" (pikes of the French bands of Picardy and Piedmont); the rest of the line of battle was composed of Landsknechts, &c., similarly arrayed, except that the arquebusiers were on the flanks and immediate front of the "corselets" and behind the arquebuses and corselets of the right wing came a Swiss monster of the old type. On the imperial side of the Landsknechts, Spanish and Italian infantry were drawn up in seven or eight battalions, each with its due proportion of pikes and "shot." The course of the battle demonstrated both the active tactical power of the new form of fire-action and the solidity of the pike nucleus, the former in the attack and defence of hills, woods and localities, the latter in an episode in which a Spanish battalion, after being ridden through from corner to corner by the French gendarmes, continued on its way almost unchecked and quite unbroken. This combination of arquebusiers supported by corselets in first line and corselets with a few arquebusiers in second, reappeared at Renty (1554), and St Quentin (1557), and was in fact the typical disposition of infantry from about 1530 to 1600.

By 1550, then, infantry had entirely ceased to be an auxiliary arm. It contained within itself, and (what is more important) within its regimental units, the power of fighting effectively and decisively both at close quarters and at a distance--the principal characteristic of the arm to-day. It had, further, developed a permanent regimental existence, both in Spain and in France, and in the former country it had progressed so far from the "residue" state that young nobles preferred to trail a pike in the ranks of the foot to service in the gendarmerie or light horse. The service battalions were kept up to war strength by the establishment of depots and the preliminary training there of recruits. In France, apart from Picardie and the other old regiments, every temporary regiment, on disbandment, threw off a depot company of the best soldiers, on which nucleus the regiment was reconstituted for the next campaign. Moreover, the permanent establishment was augmented from time to time by the colonel-general of the foot "giving his white flag" to temporary regiments.

The French infantry in 1570.

The organization of the French infantry in 1570 presents some points of interest. The former broad classification of _au delà_ and _en deça des monts_ or "Picardie" and "Piedmont," representing the home and Italian armies, had disappeared, and instead the whole of the infantry, under one colonel-general, was divided into the regiments of Picardie, Piedmont and French Guards, each of which had its own colonel and its own colours. Besides these, three newer corps were _entretenus par le Roy_--"Champagne," practically belonging to the Guise[6] family, and two others formed out of the once enormous regiment of Marshal de Cossé-Brissac. At the end of a campaign all temporary regiments were disbanded, but in imitation of the Spanish depot system, each, on disbandment, threw off a depot company of picked men who formed the nucleus for the next year's augmentation. The regiment consisted of 10-16 "ensigns" or companies, each of about 150 pikemen and 50 arquebusiers. Each company had a proprietary captain, the owners of the first two companies being the colonel-general and the colonel (_mestre de camp_). The senior captain was called the sergeant-major, and performed the duties of a second in command and an adjutant or brigade-major. Unlike the regimental commander, the sergeant-major was always mounted, and it is recorded that one officer newly appointed to the post incurred the ridicule of the army by dismounting to speak to the king. "Some veteran officers," wrote a contemporary, "are inclined to think that the regimental commander should be mounted as well as the sergeant-major." The regiment was as a rule formed for parade and battle either in line 10 deep or in "battalion" (i.e. mass), Swiss fashion. The captain occupied the front, the ensigns with the company colours the centre, and the lieutenants the rear place in the file. The sergeants, armed with the halbert, marched on each side of the battalion or company. Though the musket was gradually being introduced, and had powerful advocates in Marshal Strozzi and the duke of Guise, the bulk of the "shot" still carried the arquebus, the calibre of which had been, thanks to Strozzi's efforts, standardized (see CALIVER) so that all the arms took the same sizes of ball. The pikeman had half-armour and a 14-ft. pike, the arquebusier beside the firearm a sword which he was trained to use in the manner of the former Spanish light infantry. The arquebusiers were arrayed in 3 ranks in front of the pikes or in 10 deep files on either flank.

The wars in which this system was evolved were wars for prestige and aggrandizement. They were waged, therefore, by mercenary soldiers, whose main object was to live, and who were officered either by men of their own stamp, or by nobles eager to win military glory. But the Wars of Religion raised questions of life and death for the Frenchmen of either faith, and such public opinion as there was influenced the method of operations so far that a decision and not a prolongation of the struggle began to be the desired end of operations. Hence in those wars the relatively immobile "battalion" of pikes diminishes in importance and the arquebusiers and musketeers grow more and more efficient. Armies, too, became smaller, and marched more rapidly. Encounter-battles became more frequent than "pitched" battles, and in these the musketeer was at a great advantage. Thus by 1600 the proportions between pikes and musketeers in the French army had come to be 6 pikes to 4 muskets or arquebuses, and the _bataillon de combat_ or brigade was normally no more than 1200 strong. In the Netherlands, however, the war of consciences was fought out between the best regular army in the world and burgher militias. Even the French _fantassins_ were second in importance to the Spanish _soldados_. The latter continued to hold the pre-eminent position they had gained at Pavia.[7] They improved the arquebus into the musket, a heavier and much more powerful weapon (fired from a rest) which could disable a horse at 500 paces.

Alva.

At this moment the professional soldier was at the high-water mark of his supremacy. The musket was too complicated to be rapidly and efficiently used by any but a highly trained man; the pike, probably because it had now to protect two or three ranks of "shot" in front of the leading rank of pikemen, as well as the pikemen themselves, had grown longer (up to 18 ft.); and drill and manoeuvre had become more important than ever, for in the meantime cavalry had mostly abandoned the massive armour and the long lance in favour of half-armour and the pistol, and their new tactics made them both swifter to charge groups of musketeers and more deadly to the solid masses of pikemen. This superiority of the regular over the irregular was most conspicuously shown in Alva's war against the Netherlands patriots. Desperately as the latter fought, Spanish captains did not hesitate to attack patriot armies ten times their own strength. If once or twice this contempt led them to disaster, as at Heiligerlee in 1568 (though here, after all, Louis of Nassau's army was chiefly composed of trained mercenaries), the normal battle was of the Jemmingen type--seven _soldados_ dead and seven thousand rebels.

Infantry in 1600.

As regards battles in the open field, such results as these naturally confirmed the "Spanish system" of tactics. The Dutch themselves, when they evolved reliable field armies, copied it with few modifications, and by degrees it was spread over Europe by the professional soldiers on both sides. There was plenty of discussion and readjustment of details. For example, the French, with their smaller battalions and more rapid movements, were inclined to disparage both the cuirass and the pike, and only unwillingly hampered themselves with the long heavy Spanish musket, which had to be fired from a rest. In 1600, nearly fifty years after the introduction of the musket, this most progressive army still deliberately preferred the old light arquebus, and only armed a few selected men with the larger weapons. On the other hand, the Spaniards, though supreme in the open, had for the most part to deal with desperate men behind fortifications. Fighting, therefore, chiefly at close quarters with a fierce enemy, and not disposing either of the space or of the opportunity for "manoeuvre-battles," they sacrificed all their former lightness and speed, and clung to armour, the long pike and the heavy 2½ oz. bullet. But the principles first put into practice by Gonsalvo de Cordoba, the combination, in the proportions required in each case, of _fire_ and _shock_ elements in every body of organized infantry however small, were maintained in full vigour, and by now the superiority of the infantry arm in method, discipline and technique, which had long before made the Spanish nobles proud to trail a pike in the ranks, began to impress itself on other nations. The relative value of horse and foot became a subject for expert discussion instead of an axiom of class pride. The question of cavalry _versus_ infantry, hotly disputed in all ages, is a matter affecting general tactics, and does not come within the scope of the present article (see further CAVALRY). Expert opinion indeed was still on the side of the horsemen. It was on their cavalry, with its speed, its swords and its pistols that the armies of the 16th century relied in the main to produce the decision in battle. Sir Francis Vane, speaking of the battle of Nieupoort in 1600, says, "Whereas most commonly in battles the success of the foot dependeth on that of the horse, here it was clean contrary, for so long as the foot held good the horse could not be beaten out of the field." The "success" of the foot in Vane's eyes is clearly resistance to disintegration rather than ability to strike a decisive blow.

[Illustration: PLATE I.

DREUX--1562.

(_From Hardÿ de Périni's Batailles Françaises, by permission._)

LÜTZEN--1632.]

[Illustration: PLATE II.

PRUSSIAN VOLLEYS, 1740. EVOLUTIONS OF THE COLUMN AND SKIRMISHERS. WELLINGTON.

VIONVILLE DE CISSEY'S COUNTER-ATTACK (SEEN FROM REAR OF PRUSSIAN 38th BRIGADE).

APPROACH-MARCH UNDER ARTILLERY FIRE, FRENCH PRINCIPLES (FROM ENEMY'S ARTILLERY POSITION).

(_From Revue d'Infanterie, 1909._)]

It must be remembered, however, that Vane is speaking of the Low Countries, and that in France at any rate the solidity which saved the day at Nieupoort was less appreciated than the _élan_ which had won so many smart engagements in the Wars of Religion. Moreover, it was the _offensive_, the decision-compelling faculty of the foot that steadily developed during the 17th century. To this, little by little, the powers of passive resistance to which Vane did homage, valuable as they were, were sacrificed, until at last the long pike disappeared altogether and the firearm, provided with a bayonet, was the uniform weapon of the foot-soldier. This stage of infantry history covers almost exactly a century. As far as France was concerned, it was a natural evolution. But the acceptance of the principle by the rest of the military world, imposed by the genius of Gustavus Adolphus, was rather revolution than evolution.

Gustavus Adolphus.