The Italian Wars were a sequence of wars waged between 1494 and 1559, initially in the Italian Peninsula and then spreading into the Mediterranean Sea, the Rhineland, and Flanders. The principal combatants were the French Valois rulers and their Habsburg rivals from Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Significant repercussions of these conflicts included the domination of the Spanish Habsburgs over Italy and a movement of power from Italy to northwest Europe.
Table of Content
Welcome back, history lovers, to our Blog post on the Italian Wars. Let us bring you along for a thrilling series of conflicts, spanning over sixty years on the fields of Western Europe. You will learn about great powers fighting for hegemony over the continent, rulers scheming against each other and alliances forming and fracturing at the first opportunity.
We will depict epic battles such as the “battle of the Titans”, Marignano, where the Swiss mercenaries lost their dominion over the European battlefields, the battle of Pavia that marked the height of Charles the Fifth’s Empire and many more. You will see the evolution of warfare with the rise of the arquebus as the dominant weapon on the battlefield and the decline of knights clad in shining armor as the main force in the battle. So buckle up and enjoy this exciting adventure through the pages of history that had its beginning in the court of Milan.
First Italian war
The Italian peninsula of the Middle Ages was divided between the fragmented north, split into numerous fiefs and city-states under the nominal sovereignty of the Holy Roman Emperor, the Kingdoms of Sicily and Naples in the south, and the Papal State that had jurisdiction over parts of central Italy. The fourteenth century was a period of consolidation for the biggest powers of Italy, especially for Milan, Venice, Florence, and the Pope, who expanded their dominions over the smaller cities.
The friction that arose from these expansions continued into the next century and culminated with the Lombard Wars between Milan and Venice. Following the signing of the Peace of Lodi in 1454, a balance emerged between the five regional powers: the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Venice, the Papal State, the Kingdom of Naples, and the Republic of Florence. A mutual defense pact, the Italic League, was formed between them and the four decades that followed were characterized by diplomatic and military balance, overseen by Lorenzo de' Medici.
Conflicts were kept small and regionalized, while the Renaissance was flourishing in all Italian centers of culture. This balance was however broken in the last decade of the century, following the death of the Florentine statesman. The spark for the First Italian War was the dynastic succession of the duchy of Milan. In 1476 Gian Galeazzo Sforza succeeded his father, Galeazzo Maria, as duke of Milan at the age of seven.
His uncle Ludovico Sforza took over the regency from his mother and introduced the young duke to a life of pleasures and games, tampering with his education and making him ineffective and uninterested in the governance of the Duchy. In 1489 Gian Galeazzo married Isabel of Aragon, granddaughter of the King of Naples Ferrante.
With all the power in the hands of Ludovico, the energetic Isabel sought the support of her family in ousting the regent. With the looming threat of a Neapolese intervention and Florence’s anti-Milanese stance, Ludovico worried that he would lose his grip on power. To defend his interests, he and his father-in-law, Ercole d’Este solicited for years an old friend of the Sforza family, the King of France Charles VIII, to come to Italy and take over the throne of Naples, a strategy already used in the past to put pressure on the Aragonese house.
The Kingdom of Naples, nominally vassal of the Papal State, had originated from the Norman conquests in southern Italy and had later been contested by the houses of Anjou-Capet and Anjou-Valois, and by the Crown of Aragon since 1282. In 1442 Renè of Anjou had lost the throne to King Alfonso the Fifth of Aragon, and conflicts between the two Mediterranean powers had followed intermittently.
After the extinction of the male line of the house of Anjou-Valois in 1481, the kings of France inherited claims to the throne of Naples, together with the duchy of Provence and other fiefs. The Kings of France of the Valois dynasty had fought the English during the Hundred Years’ War, but by 1453 the gradual reconquest of the French mainland was mostly completed. The centralization of authority into the hands of the Crown continued in the following decade by limiting the power of the powerful nobles and inheriting some of the lands of the Duke of Burgundy following his death, causing conflict with the Holy Roman Emperor. By the last decade of the century, the Kingdom of France had started to integrate the Duchy of Brittany and reformed its army from its old feudal nature, giving the King the resources to partake in an expedition that would have been impossible some years before.
King Charles VIII was captivated by the opportunity of expanding into Italy, which up to that point had been limited to the Angevine claims and to influence in the Genoese Republic. So after a few years of preparation and having secured peace treaties with his neighbors, he departed France in August 1494 at the head of an army of around 30000 men, including 8000 swiss mercenaries and a modern artillery park. The claimed goal was to take over Naples and to obtain a foothold from where to stage a crusade against the Ottoman Turks, which was largely propagandized as the final objective of the expedition.
Charles led his army through the lands of the infant Duke of Savoy, whose mother received the King and his large army cordially, and then reached the Orleanese exclave of Asti on the 9th of September, while his cousin Louis of Orleans led another army by sea and reached Genoa, at the time controlled by Milanese governors. In the meantime, many French companies had already arrived in Italy to secure strong points and Ludovico Sforza had started to recruit soldiers for the expedition. The king of Naples Alfonso the Second, who had succeeded his father the same year, had not sat idly while the French prepared. He allied himself with Pope Alexander the Sixth, better known as Rodrigo de Borja, and made preparations to delay the French advance by hiring condottieri from Lombardy and Lazio.
He also sent his son Ferdinando, Duke of Calabria, and the condottiero Gian Giacomo Trivulzio to Romagna with the objective of invading Lombardy. At the same time, his brother Federico, 4000 men, and the Genoese exiled nobles Cardinal Pàolo Fregoso and Obietto Fieschi went to Liguria with the objective of starting revolt to overthrow the Milanese and French garrisons in Genoa, which supplied the French fleet. A failed attempt to take Pòrtovenere in July was followed by the occupation of Rapallo on the 5th of September, but three days later Louis of Orleans with 3000 Swiss mercenaries and Genoese-Milanese militias defeated the force and destroyed the town, crushing any hopes the Neapolitans had to ignite revolts in the region. Some French and Milanese contingents skirmishes in September and October with the joint Neapolitan, Florentine, and Papal army in Emilia, culminating with the Sack of Mordano.
The castle in the possession of Caterina Sforza, Lady of Imola and Forlì, was devastated by the French troops, so she decided to drop her support for Naples and instead sided with Charles, limiting Ferdinando’s support in the area. The complete destruction of the surrendered town and the slaughter of both the population and the defenders was a calculated strategy by the French king.
Not wanting to play by the Italian rules of war, which were characterized by defense, containment, maneuver, attrition, and backdoor diplomacy, the King wanted to plough through the peninsula by making examples of what happened to resistance and frightening his foes, a brutal tactic called “furia francese” by later authors.
On the 21st of October, the sick Duke Gian Galeazzo Sforza died under suspicious circumstances and his uncle Ludovico left Charles to return to Milan where he took the title of Duke of Milan, which was confirmed by the Holy Roman Emperor. Charles, after having recovered from a month-long illness, decided to move along the western side of the peninsula through Tuscany, to pressure the Florentines into submission.
The signore of Florence, Piero de’ Medici, had allied himself with Alfonso, but the Florentine people were sympathetic to the French and Piero’s grip on power was shaky. Charles traversed the Apennines and found himself blocked by the formidable fortress of Sarzanello and the city of Sarzana, where he was joined by his artillery and Swiss mercenaries by sea. The modern fortress could withstand both the French army and their artillery for months.
Looking for a more vulnerable objective, the cannons were taken to the Florentine exclave of Fivizzano where they were effective and the town was conquered and destroyed with the support of the local noble Malaspina, killing the defenders and devastating other villages in the region that surrendered, with the sole objective of terrorizing the Florentines in Sarzana. Piero de Medici went by himself to the French king and surrendered the fortress together with the cities of Sarzana, Pietrasanta, Pisa, and Livorno, saving the king much time he would have spent on investing the fortresses. This was not popular with the Florentine population, who expelled the Medicis and installed a republican government influenced by the priest Savonarola. Charles traversed the territory of Lucca and then entered Pisa hailed as a liberator from the Florentine subjugation.
Here he promised Pisa freedoms, though it is probable that the freedom that the Pisans had in mind was different from what Charles had intended. By the fifteenth of November, Charles entered with his army into Florence where he stipulated an agreement with the new government, keeping the Tuscan cities until the end of the campaign while Florence would subsidy him 120000 florins. After obtaining free passage through Siena, the French army reached the northern border of Lazio, throwing Rome into chaos.
The two biggest rivals of Pope Alexander, the cardinals Ascanio Sforza and Giuliano Della Rovere sided with the French and pushed for a Council to reform the Church and to depose the corrupt Pope. The defensive line set up by the Orsini quickly crumbled and the left vanguard advanced into Umbria, and from there entered Abruzzo which revolted from Neapolitan control.
A number of nobles and condottieri defected to the French, the Roman population rioted, while the Colonna family, allies of Della Rovere, had occupied Ostia in September making the defense of the city untenable. Ferdinando was allowed to return to Naples, while Charles entered Rome on the 31st of December.
After a few days, Charles managed to meet the Pope, who had barricaded himself in Castel Sant’Angelo, and obtained free passage through the papal state with provisions for his army, but he did not obtain the investiture for the Kingdom that he had hoped for. After a month in Rome, Charles left for Naples, where he expected a stiffer resistance than he had experienced until then. However, Naples was in complete confusion. Alfonso the Second had abdicated in favor of his son and left for Sicily with the royal treasury.
The historically pro-Angevine Neapolitan barons flocked to the French army, and the local population greeted the French as saviors. A few cases of local resistance were brutally bombarded and executed, such as the castle at Monte San Giovanni. Ferdinando with his last 10000 men set up camp first at San Germano and then at Capua, but while the King was in Naples, Capua rebelled and the condottiero Gian Giacomo Trivulzio delivered it to the French, entering their service, and causing the scattering of the army. Ferdinando, having been outmaneuvered and lost support from everyone, escaped with his court to Ischia and, at the same time, Charles entered Naples on the 22nd of February 1495, with little resistance from the defenders left behind.
In just five months, the French king had traversed the Italian peninsula nearly unopposed, and any resistance against him had been pulverized. It was a political earthquake for the region, which shocked the contemporaries, scared the Italian states, and would have lasting effects on the Italian peninsula. Ludovico il Moro, who had not expected France to put so many resources into the expedition, found himself in a worrisome situation as Louis of Orleans pressed claims for his title. In the spring of 1495, the League of Venice was formed to contrast the hegemony of France in Italy, which was formed by Spain, Milan, Venice, the Emperor, the Pope, and other minor Italian states, although Maximilian von Habsburg and Alexander the Sixth did not contribute.
Worried about being blocked in Southern Italy, Charles decided to return to France and left the Kingdom on the 20th of May, leaving behind half of his force with the task of defending Naples. He reached Rome, which the Pope had left, and continued north passing Siena and Pisa, keeping the Tuscan fortresses to the dismay of the Florentine. He sent part of his army to Liguria, accompanied by the same Genoese exiles the Neapolitans had sent the prior year, with the hopes of starting a rebellion there. At the same time, Louis of Orleans defeated a small force sent to screen him and conquered Novara with a force of 10000 men and then attempted to take Vigevano, but was besieged at Novara by a Milanese force of 40000 men. Charles continued his march and after sacking Pontremoli he crossed the Apennines, where he was blocked at the village of Fornovo by the assembled army of the League of Venice.
Battle of Fornovo the first battle of Italian wars
The Italian army was composed mostly of condottieri hired by Venice, with only a quarter of those being Milanese as their main force was preoccupied at Novara. They were led by the Marquise of Mantova, Gianfrancesco the Second Gonzaga. Sources conflict around the exact number of troops, but it seems that the army was composed of around 8600 heavy knights, 1500 Italian light cavalry and mounted crossbowmen, 800 stradioti, light cavalrymen originating from the Balkans, 8000 infantry armed both with ranged and melee weapons and a few artillery pieces, for a total of around 20000 men. Many nobles from Romagna, such as the leaders of Bologna, Rimini, Ferrara, and Urbino participated as well.
Charles army at Fornovo was composed of 5500 mounted men, distributed into a mix of heavily armored knights, light cavalry, and mounted crossbowmen of which 400 were Italian; 4000 infantry, including 3000 Swiss mercenaries which were the spearhead of the army, and 42 cannons armed by 1000 men, for a total of a little over 10.000 men. The vanguards of the two armies arrived in the vicinity of Fornovo on the 1st of July, where a squadron of Italian light cavalry attacked the enemies and took some prisoners, while the French fortified their camp on the high ground. The following days the stradioti continued to harass the French camp while the complete armies arrived in the area.
On the 6th of July, Charles sent an envoy to ask for free passage back to France. While the Italians argued on what to do, as the Venetian representatives did not wish to attack head-on and bickering between the many members of the League made the command of the force difficult, Charles waded the river and marched along the northern bank, dividing his army into three battlegroups, and assigning most of the army, the artillery and the Swiss mercenaries to the vanguard led by Gian Giacomo Trivulzio and the Marshal of Giè, as they expected that they would have to cut through the enemies.
Seeing the army advance, Francesco Gonzaga decided to attack. He formed his army up into 3 columns, with half of the cavalry in the front and the second half in reserve, with a considerable force left to protect the fortified camp. Gonzaga's strategy was to attack the three groups simultaneously, while two squadrons of stradioti and mounted crossbowmen would circle around and harass the French left flank.
The battle started with an artillery duel which was swiftly won by the French but led to few casualties. During the night it had rained heavily, making the river Taro, usually a stream in the summer, a considerable obstacle, and the storm continued in the morning. This slowed down Gonzaga’s main force in the center, as it was forced to cross the river after the left flank and delayed the attack against the center. In the meantime, the right wing composed of the Milanese knights led by the Count of Caiazzo attacked the vanguard, but after a single attack against the Swiss formation, they retreated back to camp. At the same time, the stradioti which should have harassed the flank soon started to loot the baggage train instead. The left and center managed to cross the river, though some drowned or refused to cross.
Reorganized, they charged the French rearguard, but the terrain was unsuited for a cavalry charge and at the same time Charles had moved the center of the army back to support the rearguard. The clash against the compact French line was devastating for the Italian, who opted for a wave assault. Many of Gonzaga’s soldiers deserted the clash, joining instead the looting of the baggage train and leaving the Italian main assault outnumbered. Even then, the King was extremely close to being captured and would have been if not for the sacrifice of the Count of Vendôme.
Many Italian commanders died or were injured, including the second in command Rodolfo Gonzaga, who should have signaled the reserve to advance, something that did not happen. On the Italian right, the infantry was cut down by the Swiss, while the reserve attempted to attack the artillery but was also repelled. Outnumbered, Gonzaga sounded the retreat and crossed the river, where many more drowned or were killed by the French. Charles, having opened up a route back to France, decided to not chase the enemy.
In just an hour, the French army lost around 1000 men and the baggage train, which had around 300.000 ducats of valuables in it, while the Italians lost around 3000 to 4000 men including many commanders. The high death toll on the Italian side was attributed to the French not taking prisoners but killing the wounded. Both sides claimed victory, as the Italians had taken the higher number of casualties and failed to block Charles, while the French lost their baggage and left the field, although modern historians give the victory to the French.
Charles continued to Asti, while the League army followed and then deviated to Novara, as both sides did not wish a second engagement. Charles stayed in Piedmont waiting for reinforcements and was rejoined by the failed expedition in Liguria. At Rapallo, part of the French fleet had been captured, while Louis of Orleans left Novara in September with the rest of his frazzled army.
By October the 9th, the Peace of Vercelli was signed between France and Milan, with Ludovico turning on his Venetian allies and granting Charles the right to use Genoa as a supply base to defend Naples, and so the King returned to France.
Reconquest of Naples during Italian wars
As Charles the Eighth was leaving the kingdom of Naples and fighting the Holy League at Fornovo, events in the south were not turning out in his favor. His stay in Naples, whilst celebrated at the start, had been characterized by the arrogant manners of the victors, alienating the citizens of Naples and turning them against him. By the end of May, a combined Neapolitan and Aragonese army of 6000 men disembarked in Calabria, but they were defeated in June of 1495 at Seminara. The previous king of Naples, Ferdinando, then departed Sicily with a navy.
On the 6th of July, the same day as the battle of Fornovo, he entered Naples with the help of a popular uprising. He began to besiege the two fortresses of the city where the French viceroy and many French and Neapolitan nobles had barricaded themselves. By then, much of Campania had revolted, while the Venetians had occupied Monopoli and Polignano.
A French relief force coming by sea was scared away by the Neapolitan fleet at the Island of Ponza. After three months of siege, the viceroy promised to give up the fortresses should no help arrive within thirty days. An army composed of pro-French barons and French soldiers was assembled and defeated a contingent loyal to Ferdinando at Eboli, but the army was unable to lift the siege as they were repelled by the artillery mounted on the walls of Naples.
During the chaos caused by the approaching French, the viceroy and his nobles took the opportunity to leave Naples, leaving a garrison in the two forts, which would surrender during the winter. Although Italian condottieri helped secure Abruzzo, the situation worsened for the French: the Spanish army led by Gonzalo de Córdoba advanced in Calabria, and Venice made landings in Puglia. For the help he received, Ferdinando had to bargain away some cities in Calabria to Aragon and in Puglia to the Venetians.
The French army, plagued by a lack of supplies and desertions caused by late payments, attempted to take Foggia, but was repelled. From that point, the French were chased around central and southern Italy until they were surrounded at Atella in July 1496 and were forced to surrender by the combined armies. Ferdinando did not enjoy this victory, as he died of sickness in October 1496. The crown passed to his uncle Federico.
The last French holdings in Gaeta and Taranto surrendered over the next 2 years allowing Federico to pacify his kingdom. He gained a new ally in the Pope after helping him recapture Ostia. While the Italian war ensued in southern Italy, the Tuscan city of Pisa became another important point of tension between the Italian states.
Pisan Revolt- Italian Wars
As soon as Piero de Medici had given the city to Charles the Eight in October 1494, the Pisans rebelled and established a republic under French oversight. Charles intended to use the city as a base to reach Naples and had to juggle Pisa’s aspirations of independence and his friendship with the Florentines, who desired the city back.
Pleas from the Florentine leaders were received by deaf ears when Charles returned from Naples, leaving a garrison in Pisa. Following the battle of Fornovo, the king decided to give up on his possessions in Tuscany, which were deemed too hard to defend. But while Livorno was handed over to Florence, the commander of the garrison in Pisa decided instead to sell the citadel to the Pisans.
In this power vacuum, both Venice and Milan tried to sway Pisa to their side by sending troops to defend against the Florentines. Other cities sent money and supplies to Pisa, which was beating back continuous assaults on their territory from Florence. They were determined to recover their previous possession but were fraught with internal divisions.
To strengthen his position in Tuscany, Ludovico had invited the emperor-elect Maximilian von Habsburg to Italy. The Habsburg family had started to emerge in the thirteenth century, and by the end of the fifteenth century, they had influenced vast territories in Southern Germany and connections to the Kingdom of Hungary. Emperor Frederick the Third had reunited the possessions of the different branches of their family, so when he passed away in 1493, he left his son Maximilian with a domain covering most of modern-day Austria, Slovenia and parts of southern Germany.
His son, Philip of Habsburg, had control over the eastern inheritance of Burgundy, being the last heir of the house of Burgundy. For Maximilian, the expedition to Italy was a chance to project his authority in the region and an opportunity to obtain the Imperial crown, which was traditionally granted by the Pope in Rome.
He descended into Italy with 4000 men in 1496 and marched towards Pisa. He attempted to besiege Livorno, but the staunch Florentine resistance and French reinforcements forced him to lift the siege. Defeated and humiliated, he returned to Austria with no results. Frustrated with the outcome, Ludovico started to recall his troops from Pisa, letting the Venetians become the de facto protectors of the city.
The conflict continued in the following years between Florence and Venice, with military actions taking place around Pisa and in the Apennine mountains. Ludovico looked for other avenues to harm his Venetian rivals: he aligned himself with the Florentines, considered to finance a return of Charles and instigated the Ottomans to attack Venice.
By early 1499, because of the threat of an Ottoman attack, the cost of fielding 20.000 men against Florence, and the imminent return of the French army to Italy, Venice made peace with Florence, obtaining a large sum of money in exchange for revoking their protection over the old maritime republic.
The Pisans, however, refused to bend the knee and managed to fend off another siege in September of that year, as a plague had struck the Florentine army. French and Swiss mercenaries made another serious attempt at breaking the Pisans' defenses in 1500, but after breaching the walls with their artillery, they were repelled by the earthen ramparts the Pisans had built within the city, and soon the mercenaries deserted.
Second Italian War
Charles had assembled a strong army with the intention of returning, but he unexpectedly died in April 1498. His cousin assumed the throne as Louis XII. The ambitious new king made no secret that he intended to return to Italy but first had to secure his own succession. He decided to divorce Jeanne of France, who had not given him heirs after 20 years, and marry the widowed queen Anne of Brittany to strengthen the French position in Brittany.
He needed papal authorization, which he obtained by granting the Pope’s son, Cesare Borgia, the title of Duke of Valentinois, a marriage with Charlotte of Albret, and the help to conquer Romagna, while the Borgia family promised that they would help the French in Italy. Louis’ interests in Lombardy came from a claim to the Duchy of Milan but the political situation in France hindered this inheritance.
Now with the full force of the French state behind him, Louis could claim what he considered was rightfully his. Ludovico’s short-sighted diplomacy had alienated Venice and Louis reached an agreement with Venice: The republic would subsidize his army and attack Milan in exchange for Cremona, Ghiaradadda, and French support against the Turks.
Ludovico’s situation wasn’t good: His main ally Maximilian had been defeated by the Swiss in the Swabian War, while the Neapolitans were late to send troops and the Florentine preferred to see how the situation evolved. He tried to bribe the French king but to no avail, while both the repair of fortifications and the recruitment of troops were behind schedule.
Small raids took place in July, but the hostilities of the Second Italian War started in the middle of August 1499: an army of 30.000 men led by Ligny, d’Aubigny, and Trivulzio departed from Asti and bombarded Rocca d’Arazzo and Annone. The forts were quickly destroyed, while the population and defenders were massacred using the terror tactics of Charles VIII. This terror and promises to lower taxes forced Voghera and Tortona to quickly surrender, allowing the French to encircle a Milanese army of 10000 at Alessandria. The commanders escaped, leaving the army leaderless, while the defenders of the city were massacred.
Ludovico had always been unpopular, so he determined that it would be impossible to defend Milan and left the capital in September with his loyal supporters and the treasury. The fortress of Milan surrendered 10 days after the French troops had entered the city, while the Venetian army of 15000 men occupied the territories promised to them. Louis entered Milan in October and stayed there for a month before returning to France. He set up a new government similar to that of a French province, creating a Senate composed of local nobles to run the regional matters with Trivulzio administering it. It did however not take long for the Milanese to be fed up with the French troops and the high taxes, so riots started in November. Aware of the discontent in Lombardy, Ludovico Sforza descended from the Alps with 13000 Italian, Swiss, and German mercenaries in January 1500 and occupied the northern valleys. After a first assault that was pushed back, Como fell on the 1st of February and two days later Sforza’s army entered Milan.
The 9000 strong French retreated west towards Novara and Alessandria garrisoning the citadels of the major cities. Sforza advanced towards them but he was indecisive when it came to using his superior numbers. He headed to Novara in early March and besieged the city, which he took by the 20th. The two armies clashed outside of the city wall in what ended in an indecisive battle, but during the evening the Burgundians and the Swiss under Sforza fraternized with the French, managing to obtain free passage back to their homelands. Sforza tried to hide among the Swiss to escape, but the French captured him.
He would die in a French prison seven years later. The French reoccupied Lombardy and the duchy was reorganized by Cardinal d’Amboise with a greater military presence: around 15000 men were left as garrisons, while the most important positions were held by French officers. Episodes of looting increased, and the cities that had rebelled were required to pay an enormous fine, while the Italian states that had given support to Ludovico, could choose between paying large sums of money for protection or being attacked by the French. Meanwhile, Cesare Borgia had already started his campaign to carve out a state in Central Italy. His father, Pope Alexander VI, appointed Cesare the governor of Cesena and Fano, while Louis sent troops, bolstering Borgia’s force to a total of 15000 men.
His first target was the cities of Imola and Forlì, headed by the regent Caterina Sforza. The city of Imola opened its doors, the garrison of the fort surrendered in December, and the city of Forlì also quickly followed suit, while Caterina retreated to Ravaldino. She held out valiantly for two months until the French cannons breached the fort. The campaign restarted the following autumn, with Cesare taking Pesaro and Rimini. Only the town of Faenza resisted for 6 months, surrendering in April 1501. Following this victory, Cesare was made the Duke of Romagna. His next objectives were Bologna and Firenze, but Louis, concerned by the growing state, put a veto on any action against those, though Castel Bolognese was still handed over to the Borgian state.
After solidifying his control over Lombardy, Louis now intended to take the crown of Naples, but he had an obstacle in the King of Aragon Ferdinand II. By that point, the union of Castille and Aragon finished the Reconquista conquering Granada, and were now ruling a vast realm. The Aragonese had a long history of interests in Italy, and Ferdinand would continue this tradition. He had for a long time considered taking the throne of Naples from the Italian branch of his Trastamara dynasty. In order to prevent another bloody war for the control of the kingdom, in autumn 1500 Louis and Ferdinand signed the Treaty of Granada, dividing the kingdom.
The former was given the title of King and the regions of Campania and Abruzzi, while the latter received the title of Duke, alongside Calabria and Apulia, while the revenues were divided between the two. The hastily prepared agreements were also confirmed by the Pope, in the hopes of creating space for his son, Cesare Borgia, to expand his power base. King Federico was unaware of the agreements between the two powers, and therefore desperately prepared against the French invasion, even asking for support from the Ottomans.
Many of his barons, aware of the imminent attack, rebelled, cutting much of the support and income the king relied upon. In the summer of 1501, a 15000 strong French army invaded the kingdom from the north, preceded by the excommunication of Federico. In the meantime, de Córdoba, the Gran Capitan, landed in Calabria with the Aragonese army unopposed. Federico was left alone, without resources, and stunned by the Spanish involvement, but he still tried to defend Capua with 9000 men. Cannon fire was exchanged for a few days but soon the walls of the town were breached, the defenders scattered and the city ravaged in one of the most horrific sacks of the Italian Wars.
The French army reached Naples in late July and forced it to surrender in August. The city was forced to pay a fortune to not be sacked. Federico retreated, hoping he could reach an agreement with Louis and reobtain parts of his kingdom, but in the end, he had to settle for a pension in France and the county of Maine, giving up his rights to the Kingdom. The Spanish army was slower to take control of their areas, as they had landed a smaller army and had to besiege the city of Taranto that did not fall until the following spring.
Following the conquest of Naples, Cesare Borgia continued his campaigns by conquering Piombino, Urbino, Senigallia, and Camerino. But he had to face the revolt of his Italian condottieri, who were worried that they would lose their fiefs in Marche, Umbria, and Lazio. Borgia promised that he would pardon them, and instead massacred them. As members of Orsini and Colonna were also assassinated, the rival families banded together against Borgia, withdrawing their support to the French. Borgia went to Lazio to confront them, taking on the way to Città di Castello and Perugia.
War of Naples 1502 during Italian Wars
It did not take long for France and Aragon to find reasons to quarrel. Two regions - Basilicata and Capitanata were ignored in the treaty of Granada, and both now claimed these lucrative regions. Skirmishes between the contesting forces in the summer of 1502 started the Third Italian War. De Còrdoba was ordered to not engage the French army, as he was outnumbered 2-to-1, so he retreated to Barletta, leaving garrisons in some fortresses, and waited for help from the sea, where the Iberians had superiority. In mid-August, the French army commanded by the Duke of Nemours, Louis d’Armagnac, reached Apulia to engage the Spanish.
The duke attempted to draw de Cordoba out for a pitched battle by blockading the Spanish army, but the Gran Capitan did not take the bait and remained behind the walls of his towns and forts in the region. At the town of Canosa, the Spanish garrison led by the military engineer Pedro Navarro repelled French assaults and artillery barrages until they negotiated a retreat back to Barletta. In the lull of the blockade, the two armies launched raids against each other, trying to disrupt supplies and collect revenues in nearby provinces. Several duels were held between knights of the two sides, the most famous of which was the “Disfida di Barletta,” where thirteen Italian knights defeated thirteen French.
In December, a Spanish relief army coming from Sicily was defeated at Seminara by a combined French and baronial army commanded by d’Aubigny. In February 1503, the Spanish fleet scored a victory against a French one off the coast of Brindisi, relieving the blockade of the Spanish base. In the same month, an attack near Taranto diverted the attention of the main French force, leaving a small blockading force around De Cordoba. The Spanish general took this opportunity by sallying out and capturing the main French base at Ruvo by assault, capturing many men and horses.
By April, 2000 Landsknecht joined de Còrdoba, giving him a comparable force to Nemours’ and on the 21st the Spaniards defeated the French near Seminara, where the Iberian infantry overwhelmed the Swiss pikes. On the 27th of April de Cordoba left Barletta with his army and was pursued by Nemours. The following day the two armies met at the outskirts of the town of Cerignola after an exhausting march in the hot Apulian countryside.
Battle of Cerignola in Italian wars
The Spanish army had arrived a few hours before and had set up camp in a defensible position. Also, a ditch was widened and an embankment was built in front of the camp under the orders of Prospero Colonna, while the French garrison in the town harassed them. Behind this ditch were positioned the 2000 German mercenaries and the 2000 light Spanish infantry, while 300 men at arms were stationed on the left flank under Colonna. These forces were covered by around 2000 arquebusiers and 20 canons, while 800 light horses defended the right flank, with de Cordoba commanding the reserve of 400 men at arms.
The French army, composed of 850 men at arms, 1100 light horses, 3000 swiss pikemen, and 4000 French and Italian infantry arrived at Cerignola an hour before sunset. Nemours was compelled by his officers to attack as soon as possible, even though his army had marched all day and lacked water. Before the battle commenced, a spark lit the Spanish gunpowder supplies, rendering their cannons useless, but de Còrdoba cried out that it was a sign of god and that they would win. 250 French men-at-arms led by the Duke of Nemours himself frontally charged the Spanish center, but they were cut down by the arquebus fire and got trapped between the pikes and the ditch that had not been noticed.
The continuous volleys of fire created chaos in the attacking line, with many commanders including the duke himself perishing; they were followed by the infantry who suffered the same fate: unable to cross the ditch, they were flanked by the Spanish cavalry; de Còrdoba ordered the reserves to counterattack and many Spanish infantrymen jumped the ditch and cut down the infantry in hand to hand combat with their knives. In less than an hour, the battle was won by the Spanish. The French army suffered 3000 casualties and more captured, including the baggage train and the artillery: only the rearguard under d’Alègre managed to escape, while the Spanish only lost 100 men.
It was one of the first times in history that mass arquebuses had been used on the battlefield. With the total destruction of French armies in Apulia and in Calabria, the majority of the kingdom declared itself for the Spanish, and on the 16th of May Cordoba entered Naples. The surviving French forces and allied barons retreated to Gaeta to wait for reinforcements and were besieged by de Còrdoba. Louis was not going to give up on Naples, so in summer he sent 5000 men under the Marquis of Saluzzo as the new viceroy of Naples to Gaeta, which forced de Còrdoba to lift the siege. At the same time, two armies moved towards the Spanish border from France, and a third army was being assembled in Lombardy departing in August under the Marquis of Mantua.
On August 18th, 1503, Pope Alexander passed away and a conclave was called to elect a new Pope. The French army set up camp outside Rome hoping to intimidate the cardinals into voting a francophile pope into office, but instead, the anti-French Francesco Piccolomini was elected Pope as Pius III, leaving the French command disoriented. By this time the French armies in the Pyrenees had been blocked either because of the lack of pay or by the fortifications, so no more actions were taken on that front as a truce was signed for that theater.
Battle of Garigliano in Italian Wars
The confusion in Rome gave time to de Còrdoba to set up a line of defense harassing his adversaries while slowly retreating. By the end of October, the French reached the town of Traietto, where they placed their camp on the right side of the river Garigliano, while de Cordoba had retreated to the other side of the river not wanting to be surrounded. The French army was composed of at least 8000 infantry from Gascony, Normandy, Switzerland, and Corsica, 1500 heavy and 3400 light horses. The Spanish army was composed of 10000 infantry, of which 2000 German, 300 men at arms, and 500 light horses.
Both sides had a number of artillery pieces, the French having the upper hand on that front. The Spanish had already started preparing earthworks and trenches in the most easily traversable points, where French attempts to cross were stopped by Iberian shooters. On the 5th of November, the French army built a pontoon bridge under the covering fire of the French artillery, which suppressed the Spanish cannons, arquebuses, and crossbows, while the defenders attempted to disturb the construction effort with explosive rafts. The following day a French contingent crossed the bridge, where they destroyed the garrison left by de Còrdoba and took their encampment.
The Spanish and Italian cavalry counterattacked, but after a fierce battle, where transalpine cannons floating on rafts were decisive, the French managed to hold a fortified bridgehead on the left side of the river. The French commanders were however not able to exploit these successes, as their men were too exhausted to continue, so it was instead decided to fortify the camps and to wait for the spring where better weather would help the operations, as only smaller raids harassed both sides. The marshy lands of the area and the incessant rains made both armies miserable; the Italians in the French army were ordered to guard the flank and back, which created frictions between them and the transalpine soldiers, so many deserted, including Gonzaga who left his command on the pretext of sickness.
Because of the terrible condition in the quagmire along the river, many soldiers on both sides got sick. The French retreated much of their army back to the hills in healthier positions, as some of their camps were flooded. In the meantime, more Spanish reinforcements arrived, increasing the cavalry up to 3600 men at arms and 1000 light cavalry. The condottiero d’Alviano suggested building a new boat bridge behind the Spanish lines and on the morning of the 28th of December, it was assembled four miles north of the french bridge under the cover of a heavy mist.
3500 Spanish infantry and a number of men at arms crossed the bridge before the French lookouts noticed them. They were followed by the German mercenaries led by de Còrdoba and 200 light horses, while the rest of the army attacked the French spearhead keeping them busy. The castle of Suio was taken as the defenders fled, which was followed by those at Castelforte. The marquis of Saluzzo, now in command, tried to organize a response, but the forces scattered and as many soldiers were sick it was impossible to oppose the Iberians.
In the evening the main force began to retreat, leaving behind some artillery pieces while others were lost in the river as boats sank. The following day the Spanish found the enemy encampments empty and pursued the retreating French forces causing many casualties. A first assault by the Spanish was repulsed but the arrival of the rest of the Spanish infantry demoralized the French who escaped to Gaeta. The losses the French took were catastrophic, 1300 lances, 3250 light horses, and 7400 infantry as of d’Alviano’s recounting.
The remnant of the French army retreated to Gaeta, where they surrendered 3 days after; the French army was allowed to return home and prisoners were released on both sides, but the Neapolitan barons that had not supported the Spanish would not be allowed to leave for France. So, ended the Italian war for the kingdom of Naples, which would remain in the hands of the Spanish crown for two centuries. As the armies of France and Spain confronted each other on the river Garigliàno, another battle for the control of the Holy Sea was destabilizing the Eternal City.
Fall of the Borgia and Pisan Republic during Italian Wars
Alexander VI had died in August 1503 and was succeeded by Pius III, a choice that was meant as a compromise between the rival factions in Rome. After less than a month the sick and old Pius died and a new Pope was elected, the powerful Giuliano della Rovere, who took the name Julius II. Pope Alexander’s death meant that his son Cesare Borgia suddenly lost his protector: he would be arrested by Pope Julius and sent to Spain. Venice had not been much involved in Italian politics following Louis’ conquest of Milan, as they were defending against the Ottomans, solicited to raid Italy by the prior Duke of Milan Ludovico. After three years of war against the Sublime Porte, the Venetians took advantage of the power vacuum that emerged after the fall of the Borgias, expanding their territory.
The new Pope was an energetic and dominant figure and after ascending to the throne, he proposed a plan to Venice to expel the French out of Lombardy. However, the Republic decided to profit from Louis’ defeat at Garigliano and the weakness of the Papal military. Julius vehemently protested the annexations in Romagna and spent two years assembling an army. In 1506 he occupied Perugia and Bologna to block the Venetian expansion. He also negotiated with the major powers of Europe. The talks culminated with the treaty of Blois in 1504 between Louis of France and Philip von Habsburg, where it was decided that the Venetian mainland would be divided between the two.
Louis, following the defeat at Garigliano, also struggled with problems in northern Italy: he had to deal with disgruntled Swiss mercenaries, who following the Battle of Novara had occupied the city Bellinzona and now created problems for the French army. He was forced to relinquish Bellinzona as a form of payment to stop them raiding Lombardy, while other Swiss attempts to occupy more territory were repelled. Between 1502 and 1508, Florence struggled to bring Pisa under their fold by hiring various French and Italian condottieri and continued to no avail.
The old maritime republic, helped by allies in the region and playing to the interests of the major powers in the peninsula, had managed to keep their independence, repelling a siege that had breached the city walls in the summer of 1505. The Pisan countryside was scorched, and their ports were blockaded until, in 1509, Florence alienated all support through the League of Cabray. On the 9th of June, 1509, after being starved out, Pisa finally surrendered on quite generous terms, as their opponents were desperate to retake the city. In Spain, the political situation changed in 1504 with the death of Isabella of Castille, which left Ferdinand as the governor of Castille.
War of Holy League and Battle of Agnadello, Ravenna and Novara in Italian Wars
In spring 1506 their daughter Juana and her husband Philip Habsburg entered Castille to take control of the kingdom, but the latter died in September. Ferdinand in the meantime had traveled to Naples to take better control of the kingdom, reforming the local army, removing Gonzalo de Cordoba from the position of the viceroy, and pardoning many barons who had been loyal to France.
Ferdinand and Louis met at Savona in June 1507 where they laid the groundworks for a coalition against Venice. Louis wanted to retake the lands that once had belonged to the duchy of Lombardy and punish Venice for their lack of help against the Swiss, while Ferdinand wished to regain control over coastal cities in Puglia. It was planned that Maximilian of Habsburg would also join this coalition. On the 10th of December 1508, the states hostile to Venice created the League of Cambrai with the official goal of expelling the Ottoman Turks out of Europe. But to reach this goal, League claimed, the greedy State of Venice had to be destroyed for sowing division in the Christian world.
The members of the League were England, Hungary, France, Spain, the Emperor, Ferrara, Mantua, and Florence, while the Pope was initially not present. Venice, surrounded on all sides, made attempts to dissuade the Papal State from joining by offering some cities in Romagna, but was instead met by an excommunication. After considering an alliance with the Ottomans, Venice decided to adopt a strategy of attrition characteristic of the Italian school of thought, expecting that the many conflicting interests in the League would make it implode, and engage one enemy at a time.
The hostilities between Venice and the League started in April 1509: The French vanguard commanded by the Governor of Milan Charles d’Amboise occupied Treviglio on the 15th defeating a small force there but retreated a few days later. Louis entered Milan on the first of May at the head of an army of around 40000 men, while the Venetian army of around 30000 was commanded by Niccolò Orsini and Bartolomeo d’Alviano, the first following the agreed strategy of attrition, with the letter appealing for more aggressive conduct of the war.
On the 9th of May, Louis traversed the river Adda with his army and occupied Cassano and Rivolta, right in front of the Venetian army, but they did not attack each other. On the morning of the 14th of May, the French army headed towards Crema. Orsini decided to move his camp to the castle of Pandino, where the supplies from Crema and Cremona converged, and after reaching it, he waited there for the rearguard. The rearguard, composed mainly of infantry and a few cannons, was attacked south of Agnadello by the French vanguard of swiss infantry, artillery, and heavy cavalry at around one o’clock, under a light rainfall.
The Venetians retreated behind a dried-up riverbed, from where they repelled the assaults of the enemy cavalry first and pikemen later: the difficult terrain composed of vineyards and muddy terrain up the slopes made it difficult for the heavily armored enemies to assault their positions. D’Alviano, who commanded the rearguard, was at Pandino and asked Niccolò Orsini for reinforcement, but he was ordered to only cover the retreat of his men. When d’Alviano arrived at the battlefield he discovered that part of the infantry, not wanting to suffer the enemy bombardment, had jumped over the riverbed and had charged the cannons.
The French cavalry attacked their sides, cutting through the Venetian formation, but they themselves were charged by d’Alviano’s men at arms, routing the enemy horsemen. While more units of the French and Venetian army arrived, the Umbrian commander saw an opportunity to attack the center where the king himself was placed and ordered a charge. However, reinforcements blocked D’Alviano’s advance, turning the tide of the battle. Orsini would not send any more relief force to the Venetian infantry, mainly composed of peasant militia, which was inexorably cut down or fled.
The French cavalry, now reorganized, surrounded d’Alviano and his men, and forced their surrender after 3 hours of battle. The Venetians lost most of their rearguard, around a quarter of their infantry units, and about 30 cannons. While the defeat was not total for the Venetians, the morale hit taken by the army was significant, and Orsini lost a third of his men to desertion as he retreated all the way back to Mestre.
Louis, who had suffered only light casualties swiftly took control of the cities once held by the dukes of Milan, all of them opening their doors at the sight of the French army: Cremona, Crema, Treviglio, Brescia, and Bergamo were occupied as agreed with the other members of the league and the king waited at the Veneto’s border for his allies, sacking Peschiera. Following the battle at Agnadello, duke of Ferrara Alfonso d’Este quickly took control of the Polesine and Rovigo, and the papal forces under Gonzaga conquered Asola and Lonato.
Venice decided to cut its losses and ordered their officials in Romagna and Apulia to leave, so when the Papal and Spanish armies reached their designated territories they surrendered. This took away the reason for the Pope and Spain to continue the conflict, alleviating the pressure from the south, but Venetian attention quickly turned north. At the beginning of June, the Imperial army entered Italy and overran most of Friuli.
The Venetians withdrew their garrisons from the other cities in Veneto, while Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Feltre, and Belluno surrendered to the Emperor, assuming they would enjoy the same privileges as the free imperial cities. Only Treviso remained loyal and was besieged by the imperials, but an unexpected hand came to help Venice: the rural population of the republic’s landholdings, harassed by the occupying forces and worried to lose influence to the oligarchies in the cities, rebelled in favor of the Republic. Bands of peasants roamed the countryside attacking smaller detachments of enemy forces and offered intel on army movements.
Having reorganized his forces, the Orsini managed to enter Padua on the 17th of July with the help of citizens and captured the German garrison. This was followed soon after by the capture of Francesco Gonzaga, while the Habsburg continued to have problems in Friuli. The city of Padua was reinforced by the patricians of the Laguna and their men bolstering the defenders to a total of 20000 men, as Maximilian himself came to Padua with his army of 24000 men reinforced by French cavalry and started the siege on the 10th of August. The artillery was effective at creating breaches but each assault was repelled by the defenders during all of September.
By the last days of the month, Maximilian lifted the siege with most of his army as the lack of funds, trust, and coordination with the French contingent made it impossible to continue. Venice jumped on the opportunity and retook control of Vicenza, but French contingents stopped any attempt against Verona. On the 22nd of December, a Venetian fleet that had harassed the Ferrarese riverbanks on the Po was bombarded by the precise artillery of Alfonso d’Este at Polesella. The loss of a number of vessels forced the Venetian to give up any pretense of influence in Ferrara, paving the way for an agreement with the Pope.
Julius had by that point reached his objectives by imposing papal control on Umbria, Emilia, and Romagna, including Ravenna and Cervia, and now was worried about the powerful French state in Lombardy. It was no secret that Louis had planned to substitute the stubborn Pope with his minister Cardinal d’Amboise, so on the 24th of February 1510, the Pope signed a separate peace with Venice, revoking the excommunication. After the success that followed the siege of Padua, the Venetian republic procured some much-needed breathing room as the invading armies returned to their bases in Lombardy and Verona for the winter.
In May of 1510 the operations in Veneto picked up steam again: a French army commanded by Chamount, governor of Milan, advanced with the army of the Duke of Ferrara into the Polesine and retook Monselice, while another army commanded by the imperial Rudolf von Anhalt with numerous French troops retook Vicenza and the cities at the foothills of the Alps: the Venetians now commanded by Gianpaolo Baglioni, retreated to their defensive positions at Padua and Treviso where they stalled the enemies.
However once again, mistrust between the leaders of the League, contrasting interests, fear of the other becoming too powerful, and the passive resistance of the population stopped the operations. The French army retreated to Lombardy after the death of Cardinal d’Amboise to respond to military actions from the Pope against them, whereas the imperial contingent was pressured back to Verona and in the autumn would mostly dissolve. The Venetians retook most of their lost territory, returning to the status quo of the previous winter.
Having full control of Romagna, the Pope was now more worried about expelling the French out of Italy: too powerful had the French king grown and this had to stop! The first step was to attack Alfonso d’Este, a longtime ally of the French and with whom the pope had frictions over salt production in the area. Furthermore, the d’Este family also held the city of Ferrara, officially a Papal Fief and territory the Pope wanted to rule. In the summer the Papal army attacked Ferrara on the pretense of trade conflict and occupied Modena, the second city of the Duchy, while Julius indirectly attempted to subtract Milan and Genoa from the French: he had the prince-bishop of Sion, Matthias Schinner, petition the Swiss Diet to send an army to aid him against Alfonso d’Este, which would pass through Lombardy and attack the French.
As they descended the Alps, the French army followed them making it impossible to forage, forcing the Swiss to return to their mountains. In September the seventy-year-old Pope moved to Bologna to oversee his army, reinforced by Venetian and Spanish troops, while the French forces unsuccessfully attempted to conquer Bologna. The Pope counterattacked in the winter by taking Concordia and Mirandola, ruled by the Francophile Pico family, but when he tried to attack Ferrara he was blocked by a French army.
The following spring commenced by holding peace talks that did not come to fruition: Julius gave Modena to an imperial envoy to shield his position from French and Imperial attacks, but the French army retook Concordia, and factions in Bologna rebelled, forcing the Papal-Venetian army to escape to Ravenna. On the retreat, the allied army took some losses from the pursuing enemy cavalry, increasing the frictions among the leadership of the army that led to the assassination of one of the papal commanders. The pro-French Bentivoglio family was reinstated in Bologna and the French returned to Milan.
Papal involvement in military and political matters was not unusual for the Italian princes, but it was for the European kings who considered the Pope to be on a higher spiritual level. For some years the monarchs of Europe had alluded to the possibility of holding a meeting to reform the Catholic Church, as Julius’ abundant use of both spiritual influence and military weapons opened him to attacks on an ecclesiastical plane: after having the French church declare itself autonomous from the Pope, in September 1511 Louis had a group of French friendly cardinals call a council in Pisa to reform the church, with the not so subtle goal to have the Pope removed from his position.
Julius managed to rally support from the Italian and Spanish cardinals and in April 1512 he called the fifth Lateran Council, stripping the one in Pisa of any legitimacy. On the political side, in October 1511 Julius organized the formation of a Holy League with Venice, Spain, and England. The Pope also reached an agreement with the Swiss Confederacy, mediated by Schinner, obtaining access to their formidable mercenaries for the coming conflict, and also hiring them as his guard. The Swiss army advanced to Milan in December, where they expected the city would revolt, but once there their ranks broke during negotiations and they returned home.
The newly appointed governor of Milan was the young Gaston de Foix, Duke of Nemours and nephew of King Louis; he had brought with him a great number of reinforcements from France, and had confronted the Swiss incursion by staying close to them and hindering the gathering of supplies like his predecessor Chaumont had the previous year. Meanwhile, the Papal army was joined by the Spanish one under viceroy Ramòn de Cardona coming from Naples, but it took them a month before they started any military action and laid siege to Bologna.
De Foix took advantage of the slow Spanish actions and quickly moved back to Emilia with his army and reinforced the defenders, forcing Spanish retreat. He then rushed to eastern Lombardy, where a Venetian army had taken over Brescia and Bergamo, sparking rebellions in the region. Gaston with a lightning march defeated the Venetians at Valeggio and then reached the city. With a night attack, he surprised the defenders and started one of the gravest sacks of the Italian War. Many soldiers became so rich that they decided to return home, and the cities that had rebelled were fined.
The Duke returned to Emilia to pursue the Spanish army. Cardona had been ordered to bide his time for combined attacks on multiple fronts, so he retreated deeper into Romagna, but when the French made an unsuccessful assault on Ravenna on the 9th of April he was compelled to defend the Romagnolan stronghold. The French army was composed of around 13000 cavalrymen, of which 3000 were light cavalry or mounted archers, 18000 infantry from Picardy, Gascony, Germany, and Italy, alongside 50 cannons. The army was reinforced by the Dukes of Ferraras 300 men and cannons, which composed two-thirds of the French artillery.
The combined Spanish-Papal army was composed of 8000 cavalry, 13000 infantry, and 24 cannons. On the morning of Easter Sunday, the 11th of April, the Duke of Nemours ordered the french army to advance on a bridge built during the night and to head towards the Papal-Hispanic camp. The League had fortified the camp excavating a trench perpendicular to the river Ronco which then bowed towards it and bladed carts with arquebuses that had been placed to protect the infantry. The Spanish were set up in three lines with the heavy cavalry on the left with artillery in front and infantry to the right, while the light cavalry was placed behind covering the right flank. The French placed their heavy cavalry on the left, infantry in the center, and light cavalry on the right in a half-crescent formation. The French army stopped in front of the Spanish line, waiting for the artillery bombardment to dislodge their adversaries from their positions.
The Duke of Ferrara moved a number of his field artillery pieces to the far left of the French line while d’Allegre moved two pieces to the opposite side of the river, from where he rained fire upon the exposed Spanish positions for two hours. Caught in the crossfire, the infantry managed to partially cover themselves by laying on the ground, hoping to weather the storm and hold their defensible positions, but the heavy cavalry was decimated as they had nowhere to hide. Fabrizio Colonna, commander of the Papal cavalry, after his requests to attack were ignored, decided to charge the enemy men at arms, as the fire drove him out from his position. As he did that, the Spanish infantry commander Navarro who had wanted to sacrifice the cavalry in favor of his infantry was approached by the French and German infantry contingents.
They came under the fire of the arquebuses on the carts, jumped the ruined defenses, and entered in a fierce melee, whilst the Spanish light cavalry rallied out to silence the Ferrarese cannons. The Spanish men at arms were less disciplined and organized than their French counterparts and had suffered more casualties following the bombardment, so they were no match for the gendarmes that quickly surrounded and captured them.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, the French light cavalry routed their Spanish opposition. During the fight the Ferrarese cannons continued to fire, mauling soldiers on both sides; when the Duke Alfonso d’Este was informed about this by a subordinate, he ordered enthusiastically to not stop firing, saying: ”fire wherever you want and without worry my bombardiers, as you can’t make mistake, because they are all enemies”. The Spanish infantry held out against German Landsknecht pushing them back while the Italians did the same against the Gascons, but they were soon charged and flanked by the French cavalry. The majority of the League’s second line was forced to surrender, as was the Spanish cavalry riding to help with Colonna.
The Spanish rearguard and the viceroy had by then retreated. When a contingent of Spanish infantry was retreating in good order, the Duke of Nemours charged against them but was caught alone amid the Spanish line, where he was unsaddled and killed. The Spanish-Papal casualties were upwards of sixty percent of their forces and many of their best commanders were captured, including the Papal representative Cardinal de Medici, Prospero Colonna and the Marquis of Pescara, Fernando d’Avalos whilst the French lost around twenty percent of their men, but many of their commanders died, including the Duke of Nemours, Yves d’Allegre and the infantry commanders. The high casualties have been attributed by historians to the unscrupulous use of cannons by the Duke of Ferrara.
After the battle of Ravenna, the city was sacked by Gascon and German footmen. The majority of the French army, now commanded by Jacques de la Palice, retreated to Lombardy awaiting orders, while a smaller contingent remained in Romagna to secure it. With the death of the young and fierce commander, the French army lost its initiative and cohesion, while the league counterattacked under the Pope’s call of “fuori i barbari” - “barbarians out”. A Swiss mercenary army of 24000 men entered Lombardy nearly unopposed with Venetian reinforcements, while Papal soldiers secured Emilia and Romagna.
La Palice moved to Veneto to confront the invading army but the lack of infantry and funds forced him to retreat to Pavia, where a short siege dislodged him: by the end of August, most of Lombardy and Liguria, save for a few citadels, was freed from French control. As the French were pushed out of the duchy, the son of Ludovico Sforza - Massimiliano was put on the throne by the Swiss in exchange for money and territory. Afterwards, the Spanish army under Cardona and the Papal force of Cardinal de Medici entered Tuscany to overturn Piero Soderini’s pro-French government in Florence, also guilty of sending men to help France and hosting the council of Pisa. The Spanish infantry assaulted Prato and brutally sacked the city, leaving 5000 dead. Terrified of suffering the same fate, Florence surrendered to Cardona, who gave it to Giuliano de Medici, reinstating the Medici family in the city. Alliances shifted once again in autumn.
In the summer a conference in Mantua had been called to draw the new borders in Italy, but the many conflicting interests stalled talks. Julius wanted to retain his acquisition in Emilia and take Ferrara, Venetians and Imperials argued about lands in Veneto and Spain hoped to keep a balance in the peninsula. In November 1512, the Papal state allied with Maximilian Habsburg alienating the Venetians. Already bitter that Brescia had been surrendered to the Spanish and not to them, this alliance drove the Venetians back to the French, with whom they stipulated an alliance in March 1513 after 5 years of hostilities. Northern Italy would be split between the two and d’Alviano returned to Venice after having been captive in France.
In February 1513 Pope Julius passed away and cardinal de Medici was elected as Leo X. Younger and less belligerent than his predecessor, it became soon apparent that his objective was to secure his family’s position in central Italy. With a new Pope less keen on defending the reestablished Sforza government, both France and Venice advanced against the Duchy of Milan in May 1513 with great success. The Spanish army held an ambiguous position: having signed a truce on the Pyrenees front, they were not keen to engage. France occupied the western part of Lombardy, while Venice took Cremona and Brescia, and other areas rebelled against Sforza. As the Spanish contingent retreated south, Massimiliano Sforza fled to Novara with 4000 Swiss mercenaries.
The army under La Trémoille besieged the city, but on the night of the 5 of June, a contingent of another 7000 Swiss mercenaries entered Novara, so the French commanders ordered a retreat in the morning. Before the dawn of the following day, the Swiss infantry went out of Novara’s gate in three columns and headed a few kilometers east of Novara where the French had encamped dispersedly, the bulk of the army being at Cascina Ariotta. The French army hastily drew up to the battle, confused and surprised by the night attack: The main column of 7000 men advanced against the French right flank, where an equally sized contingent of Landschneckt with the cannons was positioned. Under heavy artillery fire, the Swiss pike formations advanced stoically taking many casualties and engaged the German mercenaries. Meanwhile the remaining Swiss made short work of the Italian and French infantry and repelled the French light cavalry.
The heavy French men-at-arms were unable to set up for battle because of the muddy and rough terrain. The struggle between the German and the Swiss, who were locked in a bloody fray, was won by the latter, who then turned the French cannons against their owners and routed the enemies. As the infantry fled many were cut down, the baggage train and cannons were captured, but the French cavalry escaped mostly unscathed. The Swiss, who had lost around 1500 men, obtained a stunning victory against a numerically superior enemy after days of marching, their fame reaching its zenith.
Following the defeat at Novara, the French escaped back to France once again. They were pursued out of Piedmont by the Swiss and the Spanish. Meanwhile, on the eastern front, the Venetian army retreated from Brescia and attempted to storm Verona. As the garrison repelled the attack and the French had left Italy, the Venetians were again forced to adopt the same defensive strategy centered around Padua and Treviso.
The combined Spanish and Imperial army attempted to dislodge d’Alviano from Padua and sacked Mestre, from where a few artillery shots were fired towards Venice to taunt them. Positioned between the enemy capital and their army, in October the allied army withdrew: d’Alviano was provoked to follow and attacked to block them, but he was soundly defeated near Vicenza by the disciplined Spanish and German infantry, which cut through the Venetian militia.
Following this the League took Vicenza, ending that year's campaign in Italy. In August of that year, the Swiss Confederacy and Imperial forces invaded Burgundy and laid siege to Dijon, capitalizing on the momentum obtained from the victory at Novara. Worried that he would lose part of the French heartland, Louis entered peace talks with the Swiss, giving up his claims in Lombardy for the security of his eastern borders. After the defeat handed to him by the Swiss near Novara, Louis could not send additional reinforcements to Italy to help his allies.
English invasion of France and Scottish Invasion of England during Italian war
An old enemy of the French Crown had joined the Holy League formed against him. Following the end of the Hundred Years' War, the Kingdom of England was embroiled in the War of the Roses between the York and Lancaster houses, which ended with the crowning of Henry the Seventh of House Tudor. He mostly focused on his country’s economy and securing his throne and its borders. His son Henry the Eight succeeded him in 1509, and the young and ambitious king was eager to make a name for himself and continental politics as the best way to make his mark on history.
He had joined the League of Cambray without partaking much in it, but old dreams of conquest in northern France reemerged when he was offered the possibility to join the war against France. In 1512, when the battle of Ravenna was taking place, Henry sent his fleet to harass the French and Breton coast, attacking the French fleet at Brest . A further 6,000 men were sent to Spain to help Ferdinand of Aragon in the conquest of Navarra and in the attack against Guyenne. However, these small incursions did not bring the young king the glory he craved, so in the summer of 1513, he organized an expedition led by himself.
After getting his council to support the invasion, he landed in Calais in the last days of June with the last of his 35.000 men, including camp-aids, who composed his invasion force. The forward and rearward of the army had already marched a few weeks before out to Marquise to then pivot east. They began to invade the French stronghold of Thérouanne on the 25th of June, the main town defending the northern border of France. The English demanded the garrison to surrender but were met by refusals and the cry “Vive le roi.” The siege made little progress in the subsequent month.
The walls of the city held out against the English bombardment, and the supply lines between Calais and the siege were vulnerable to French raiding parties composed of stradiots, with one attack on a supply convoy causing significant high casualties. The besiegers attempted to mine the walls but were successfully countered by the defenders, and a company of German mercenaries would continuously disrupt the digging of trenches with their arquebuses. Henry and the main contingent of his army finally left Calais on the 21st of July with his artillery train and German mercenaries, skirmishing with French garrisons on their way . They set up camp a mile north of Thérouanne on the 1st of August.
On the 10th of August, Emperor Maximilian joined Henry with a bodyguard of around 1500 men. In the meantime, Louis was assembling an army at Blangy to break the siege. Henry crossed the Lys with his detachment to close the siege from the south and meet his enemies, setting his camp at Guinegate. The garrison of Thérouanne was starting to run out of supplies, so the French cavalry organized an expedition to bring food and gunpowder to the city. On the 16th, a supply party was sent out: one contingent of cavalrymen was to harass the English from the north, while another was to make the breakthrough with the supplies covered by a third contingent through a route that had been used some days before to reinforce the town.
Henry had been informed by his spies about the attack and had placed his light guns on the top of a small hill and his archers behind a hedge. When the first contingent neared Thérouanne, between Bomy and Guinegate, it was met by a hail of arrows and arquebus shots. Confused, as they had only expected light resistance, the first group halted and then backtracked, crashing into their compatriots. As the knights were getting back their bearings, they were threatened to be encircled by the English cavalry, so they began to flee the battlefield.
The diversionary contingent had little success at the north of the city, engaging the English light cavalry in some skirmishes, while the garrison sallied out against the infantry but was contained. Whether the retreat was because of fright or to follow the orders not to engage the enemy army, it quickly became a route that was jumped upon by the Burgundian cavalry . Many stragglers or those who took a stand to cover the retreat, like the knight Bayard, were taken prisoners, including La Palice and the Duke of Longueville.
However, the number of casualties was small. After the rout and capture of the French cavalry, the garrison decided to surrender the town on the 23rd, as the prospects of being resupplied were very unlikely. They were allowed to leave the city with their weapons and luggage. Henry and Maximilian decided to burn down Thérouanne and destroy the walls, as it was deemed too difficult to defend.
They then moved to Tournai, which fell after a short siege on the 23rd of September, the last act of the campaign. Tournai would remain English until 1518. As the King of England was campaigning on the continent, his northern neighbor saw an opportunity to strike. The Kingdom of Scotland had a troubled history of war, rebellions and warfare with the Kingdom of England, but by the end of the fifteenth century, the Scottish King James Tudor the Fourth and Henry the Seventh had worked on reaching a lasting peace. They signed the Treaty of Perpetual Peace in 1502, sealed with the Scottish king marrying the daughter of Henry the Seventh. James, however, still cultivated the Auld Alliance with the King of France, so when war between the two parties broke out, the Scottish king found himself in a precarious situation.
Century-old frictions with England and James' bad relations with Henry pushed the Scots to side with the French, with whom he formed a league in May 1512. When Henry the Eighth had departed for France, King James received supplies and money from the Queen of France to mount a diversionary attack in the north. He raised an army and encouraged raids into the English border regions, culminating in August 1513 when the Scottish army traversed the Tweed River and besieged a number of castles. The Earl of Surrey (Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk), appointed Lieutenant-General of the army of the north, headed north where an army of around 25000 men was already mustered. James had quite the chivalrous idea of war and had informed the English of his invasion a month prior, giving them time to prepare.
When the army drew closer, the Earl of Surrey challenged the King to meet him on the 9th of September. Surrey had hoped to give battle at Millfield, but the Scottish were encamped in a strong position on a hill at Flodden. So the Earl crossed the river Till at Wooler on the 8th at the surprise of the King, just to then recross the river the following day behind the Scottish position, cutting them off from their supplies. James moved his army, composed of around thirty to forty thousand men and cannons, a mile north to Branxton Hill, while the English rendezvoused at the village of Branxton, in a lower position in respect to their opponents.
In the afternoon, the battle commenced with an exchange of artillery fire, with the English lighter guns finding more success, although the uneven terrain prevented the cannonballs from doing too much damage. During the exchange, the Scottish left flank suddenly charged into the English right. In the fight, they quickly gained the upper hand over their opponents, the outnumbered English vanguard. The Earl of Surrey sent his cavalry, kept in reserve, which he had concealed from the Scots, to help the struggling flank and prevent a rout.
Though the Highlanders were armed with pikes sent by the French, one of the more recent developments in military technology from the continent, which had become the bane of cavalry on the continent, they had not accustomed themselves with handling that weapon. The left flank quickly lost their tight formation at the charge and decided to retreat. Meanwhile, the center contingent also descended the hill but lost their cohesion in the muddy terrain at the bottom and was struck by English longbow fire. When they came to hand-to-hand combat with the English center, they were slaughtered by the English, armed with less clunky hooked bills, a type of polearm.
The King was committed to winning the battle by capturing the Earl of Surrey, so he joined his division and descended the hill. He entered a fierce mêlée with his opponents, but in doing so, he lost the overall command of his army. The Scottish right wing of Highlanders rushed to save their king, who was in a precarious situation, but the opposing English flank composed of longbowmen advanced, and their volleys made short work of the lightly armored infantry. As all sides surrounded the King’s division, James the Fourth was struck by arrows and bills, as did many of the Scottish nobles with him. The battle was lost for the Scottish, with the casualties of the battle being around 10000 men for the Scottish while the English lost approximately 4000.
Scotland fell into chaos following the death of the King, as a regency council was set up in the name of the infant heir, James the Fifth, removing Scotland from the international scene for two decades. By 1514 Louis was desperate to break his diplomatic isolation which saw all his neighbors hostile towards him. A first crack in the system of alliances came in the summer of that year, where he concluded an alliance with King Henry of England and married his sister, Mary, following the death of his first wife Queen Anne. Another ruler with whom he attempted to reconcile with was Pope Leo X.
The first step he took was to repudiate the Council of Pisa in 1513, but the Pope still held an ambiguous policy towards the French. At the same time, Florence had historically had a number of economic interests in France, and the Medicis were ambitious, considering Ferrara, Urbino, and Naples as possible thrones for the Pope’s brother Giuliano and nephew Lorenzo. These political considerations would lead to the arranged marriage of Giuliano de Medici and Filiberto of Savoy, who was the relative of the French heir.
The war did not stop in Veneto. The campaign of the year 1514 started with yet another Imperial invasion of Friuli, but d’Alviano counterattacked in March and pushed them out. He was then given permission by the Venetian senate to leave his base in Padua and attacked Spanish contingents to his south in small skirmishes, while the besieged detachment at Crema took over Bergamo after defeating a Milanese army. As the Milanese and Spanish retook Bergamo, the Venetians retreated to Padua keeping the stalemate of the previous years. On the first of January 1515 king Louis died and was succeeded by his cousin, Francis. The new Valois monarch was young, strong, brave, and charismatic, and he had also been educated in the arts of commanding an army and ruling a kingdom.
He wasted no time in preparing to enforce the French ambitions in Italy. He confirmed the alliances with England and Venice and concluded a truce with the ruler of the Low Countries Charles Habsburg. He also expected the neutrality of the Pope following the political marriage arranged the previous year. Francis hired an impressive army of 23000 Landsknechts, 11000 horsemen, and 60 artillery pieces. The Swiss in Milan, aware of the concentration of soldiers in Lyon, decided to anticipate the French king by sending soldiers to block the most important passes in the Alps, but Francis played them by entering Italy through steep valleys further south after Trivulzio had scouted the area.
The army arrived after a monumental effort to Saluzzo, where La Palisse with a contingent of men at arms rode to Villafranca managing to surprise and destroy the Milanese cavalry commanded by Prospero Colonna. The Swiss, now without the support of the Milanese horsemen, backtracked and concentrated around Milan. The Pope, seeing which way the wind was blowing, dispatched his army to secure Parma and Piacenza but only sent a token cavalry unit to the Swiss. Francis continued his march reaching the outskirts of Milan and taking Novara and Pavia.
The Swiss and Massimiliano at this point were ready to negotiate, willing to give up the Duchy for a large fee to the Swiss and a noble title for the duke. An agreement was reached in the Treaty of Gallarate, though not accepted unanimously by all Swiss cantons, which made the majority of the soldiers of the cantons of Bern, Fribourg, and Solothurn return home. Both Cardona and d’Alviano had moved closer to the confronting armies by then.
Battle of Marignano- Italian wars
Francis positioned himself at the town of Melegnano, then called Marignano, to cut the Swiss off from the League’s army encamped near Piacenza and to get closer to his Venetian allies now stationed at Lodi, at one day of marching from his position. The Confederate leaders in Milan were divided on whether or not to attack the French.
During the night between the 12th and 13th of September, a skirmish broke out near Porta Romana between Papal and French cavalry during which some Swiss were killed. The bells rang and on the following day, the Swiss gathered at the Castle of Milan, where Cardinal Schiner with a fiery speech convinced the majority of commanders to face the French army and filled the soldiers with courage.
They marched towards Porta Romana filled with confidence that they would win. The Swiss army was composed of around 25000 to 30000 infantry and around 10 cannons. They were joined by 200 light horses from the Papal state and Spain, and an unknown number of Sforza loyalists and Milanese rabble. Confronting them were 3000 cavalrymen, 26000 Landknenkts, of which 6000 were of the elite Black Band company, the best German mercenaries of the time, 9500 French and Gascon infantry under Pedro Navarro, and 60 cannons of various calibers.
The Venetian stationed at Lodi had 900 heavy cavalry, 1400 light cavalry, and 9000 infantrymen. The Swiss divided themselves up into three battalions once they were out of the city with a strategy developed on the few pieces of information they had on the enemy positions. The French were quartered north of Marignano in three distinct encampments in a line along the main road. While marching, the Swiss roared their cannons to instill courage in the troops, giving confirmation to the French that they were arriving as their spies had reported. When they reached the outskirts of San Giuliano, the Swiss leaders met to reformulate a plan as the previous intelligence they gathered was incorrect.
They decided to attack even though it was late afternoon and they were mostly concerned about locating the position of the French artillery, which they considered the only real weapon the French had; a task made difficult by the smoke and dust caused by the enemy army forming up. So, the Swiss fired their cannons and when the French responded, the Swiss knew that they were on a rampart behind a deep ditch. Some soldiers from the cantons that signed the treaty called the freiknechte stayed with the army and they charged the cannons head-on.
This first wave was butchered by the artillery, their bodies filling the ditch, but when a greater bulk of the Swiss attacked they overcame the defenses and clashed with the German and Gascon defenders. The Swiss found success, resisting the enemy's counter-attack in their tight formations and capturing 7 artillery pieces, sending the vanguard scrambling back, as did the Milanese accompanying the Swiss.
Francis, seeing parts of his vanguards faltering, assembled 1000 heavy cavalry and charged the Swiss pikemen that were chasing a band of Landsknechts, rallying them to continue fighting. The Constable Bourbon, who commanded the right, also managed to regain control of some of his men and with a battery set up on a second line he pushed back another battalion of Swiss.
The fighting continued even after it got dark, and French records complain that their soldiers could not distinguish between the friend and foe. The fighting ended only at 11 in the evening but it would not be a calm night.
The Swiss rested under the stars at San Giuliano and Zivido, very close to their adversaries. The French attempted to dislodge them, but some of them got lost and encamped behind enemy lines and were short on supplies. Trivulzio with some engineers destroyed the embankment of a nearby canal, filling their defensive ditch, and the water spilled over to some of the Swiss positions, destroying most of their gunpowder.
The French king, who spent all the night “with his buttock on the saddle, lance in hand and helmet on the head”, sent a messenger to Lodi, calling for D’Alviano to move with his army. At dawn, Francis positioned his army in three units, with himself in the center with the cannons in front, and two wings commanded by Bourbon and the Duke of Alencon. The three Swiss arrays moved against their counterparts, with the biggest of them towards the King's position.
They were mauled by a hail of crossbow bolts, arquebus shots and cannon fire, forcing some of them to retreat, but some of the Swiss pikemen traversed the flooded ditch, took the artillery, and fought against the center. On the French right, the pikes did not engage for either lack of courage or desertion, so Bourbon charged into the flank of the Swiss central battalion. On the left, the Swiss battalion had more success, routing the cavalry under Alencon. Some of them attacked the flank of the king's central group, while others chased the fleeing soldiers.
The cavalry of the left flank was soon reorganized and then came the Venetian vanguard with D'Alviano’s horsemen. The reformed French cavalry and D’Alviano charged the Swiss left flank, but failed to do much damage and were repulsed. However, the Swiss saw the approaching Venetian army and lost heart. Their right and left battalions started to flee. The central formation, having lost all hope, tried to retreat in good order under the fire of the enemy infantry.
Most escaped on the main road, flanked by the waterways: 6000 concentrated in a forest where they resisted until the cannons dislodged them, while others who sought rescue in some nearby buildings were burnt alive or massacred by the locals. Trivulzio would call the fight a “Battle of Giants”; Francis was knighted after the battle by the famous French knight Bayard, giving him the aura of “chivalrous king”. Although the Swiss showed their prowess, the battle ended with more than 10000 of them dead and thousands wounded or captured, while the French lost around 5000. The rest of the Swiss went back to Milan and from there to Switzerland.
Francis had ordered not to pursue them, hoping to not drive an indefinite wedge between him and the Confederacy. All of Lombardy was reoccupied, Milan soon capitulated and Massimiliano Sforza, treated cordially as he was just considered a Swiss puppet, was sent to Paris where he would live the rest of his life comfortably. The King entered Milan on the 11th of October as a victor, the city paying a fine for its insubordination. The Swiss sent envoys to make peace and an agreement was reached, similar to the treaty of Gallarate, though it was not accepted by all the cantons as they wanted to hold on to their conquests in Lombardy. Cardona returned to Naples in the eventuality of an attack there, while Pope Leo opened up for negotiations.
The agreement reached was that Francis would take the Medici family, Florence, and the Papal State under his protection, Giuliano would be made Duke of Nemours, while the Pope would protect the Milanese state and hand Parma and Piacenza back. In December 1515 at Bologna, another meeting was held where the matter of the autonomy of the French church was resolved in favor of the Pope, giving ample privileges there, while the integrity of the Duchy of Ferrara was confirmed. Meanwhile, the war was in its final stages: the French sent their army to uphold their part of the deal with Venice, besieging Brescia in October. However the siege dragged out, as a few weeks after the battle of Marignano d’Alviano died of his wounds; sorties disrupted the siege effort, and a German relief force arrived in December.
In February 1516 a new threat was looming over the French. English king Henry VIII who had a personal rivalry with Francis was worried about his success, so he financed a Swiss invasion composed of soldiers from the cantons that did not sign the treaty and Maximilian joined with his own troops. They entered Italy from Trentino and after unsuccessfully besieging Asola pressed on to Milan. The French-Venetian army did not want to engage them, predicting correctly that the invasion force would soon run out of funds and 8000 Swiss from the other cantons came to Milan. As the capital of Lombardy did not revolt, Maximilian, now old and tired, announced he did not have the funds to continue the operation and turned back, while the Swiss only left once that they had been repaid.
Francis would make peace with the Swiss confederacy in November with the treaty of Fribourg, freeing Milan from Swiss interference and establishing Swiss neutrality towards France. Meanwhile, Pope Leo was working towards creating a Medicean power base in central Italy. After giving the government of Florence to Giuliano de Medici he had ambitions to set up his nephew Lorenzo in Naples too, but the King of France would not give up his claim to the Kingdom. When Giuliano died, Lorenzo took over Florence and tried to annex the cities of Lucca and Siena, but failed. So in the summer of 1516, he decided instead to attack Urbino, even though its Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere had given refuge to the Medici after being exiled from Florence.
Della Rovere fled from his duchy which was quickly overwhelmed. However the following year he returned with an army composed of soldiers stationed at Verona and in February he started a costly war that ended in September with a compromise that allowed Della Rovere to retire in Mantua with his army. In 1519 Lorenzo died, and with only a female newborn Caterina de Medici as heir, the Papacy took direct control of the duchy. Back in the Po valley, following a few more skirmishes, Brescia finally surrendered to the Venetian Republic in May 1516. The Venetian and French armies then went to Verona, but the Imperial and Spanish defenders held out for the rest of the year until negotiations between the Habsburgs and Francis gave the city to the Venetians in January 1517.
After eight years, the war in Veneto had ended. The many armies which had traversed and fought there had devastated the territory. The city of Vicenza had changed hands 36 times between the Battle of Agnadello and 1517, causing much suffering. Despite the fact that the Venetians were still the strongest Italian state, the republic was in a dire economic situation. Meanwhile two great European powers were building up forces to take full control of the peninsula. The Habsburg rise to the Spanish throne was not a planned one.
Fourth Italian war
When Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy, married Joanna of Castile in 1496, she was not the first in the succession line, but by 1500 a series of deaths in her family made her heir presumptive to the Iberian monarchies. However, Joanna was soon declared mentally infirm and was locked up for the rest of her life in a castle. Following the deaths of her mother, Isabel of Castille, and her husband Philip, her father Ferdinand of Aragon was made governor and regent of Castile until their heir Charles would come of age. He had been raised by his aunt Margareth in the Low Countries.
When Ferdinand died in 1516, his grandson Charles became king of Castile and Aragon at the age of 15. He was able to take control of the kingdoms and in August 1516 he stipulated the Treaty of Noyon with Francis, dividing Italy into two spheres of influence, a northern French and a southern Spanish, while Verona was surrendered to the Venetians. In January 1519 the old Emperor Maximilian died. The imperial crown was not inherited like other titles, but one was elected to the position by the seven imperial electors. The tired archduke had pooled all his remaining resources to get his grandson elected, but the French king Francis also threw his hat in the ring for the throne.
He believed that only with the imperial crown could he secure his grasp over Italy, so he profused large sums of money to the Imperial electors. Charles, with an agreement with the Fugger banker family, gave out promises of gifts to the electors if he would receive the Imperial Crown. The Electors, who were already worried about the strength of the French king and wanted a Germanic emperor, gladly took the French money and then voted for Charles to maximize their profits, thus electing him in June 1519. Following the imperial election, Pope Leo wagered his bets. In Germany, the ideas to reform the Church spread by the Saxon preacher Martin Luther were gaining traction, and Charles was the perfect candidate to keep the unity of the Church.
Leo was also worried that the young Emperor would retaliate against him as he had supported the Duke of Saxony in the imperial election and the Emperor could easily strike at Rome. At the same time, he was still officially allied with the French King, but the latter’s holding of Parma and Piacenza and the unwillingness to lift his protection over Ferrara conflicted with the Pope’s interests. So Leo decided to ally himself with Charles, who promised him to combat the heresy in Germany, to give Parma and Piacenza to the pope, and to let him annex Ferrara. In exchange, the Pope would finance the costs of war to expel the French from Lombardy replacing them with a Sforza prince and allow Charles to keep simultaneously the Crown of Naples and the Imperial Crown.
War was brewing once again in Italy. The alliance was signed in May 1521, but already in February Francis had funded expeditions against Charles in Spain and Luxembourg. Taking advantage of unrest in Spain, the king sent André de Foix to help the King of Navarra, Henry d’Albret, retake the region of his Kingdom under Spanish control. They conquered the capital Pamplona and took control of the kingdom, but after having resolved the internal rebellion, in June a strong Castilian counter-attack beat them back in the Battle of Noáin. In autumn a second French attack took Fuenterrabía and the castle of Amaiur but did not advance further. Francis also financed Robert de la Mark’s attack on Luxembourg, which was thwarted by an imperial army under Henry of Nassau, and the Duke of Gelre’s struggle to keep his independence, a conflict that had taken place for over two decades.
Nassau pushed into northern France and tried to take the castle of Mézières, but unable to do that he retreated and conquered Tournai. Both Charles and Francis had assembled their armies at the border of Flanders, but the rains of autumn discouraged further conflicts. The campaign in Italy started with a failed attempt to take Genoa and crushed revolts in Milan. The Governor of Milan Odet de Foix, Viscount of Lautrec was commanding the French army in Italy. On the other side, Prospero Colonna was placed in overall command of the allied armies, Federico Gonzaga and Francesco Guicciardini commanded the papal soldiers, while the Marquis of Pescara and de Leyva commanded the Spanish.
The Swiss confederacy had agreements with both the Pope and the King of France to send mercenaries, and so they did. Once the army had assembled, Colonna commenced his attack in August by besieging Parma, defended by Latrec’s brother the Viscount of Lescun, but the approach of the French army forced him to retreat. In October the Spanish-Papal army crossed the Po river behind the French and was later joined by their Swiss allies, though some of them went to defend Papal territories to not infringe the pact of neutrality with the French king.
The French army, which was hemorrhaging Swiss mercenaries, retreated behind the river Adda and, after being unable to stop the enemy crossing at Vaprio, backed up to Milan. Heavily outnumbered, the French and Venetian forces fled the city after the Milanese population revolted, who then welcomed with open arms Colonna’s army on the 20th of November, and soon the rest of the duchy came under their control.
Francesco Sforza, the second son of Ludovico il Moro was declared duke while Papal forces reconquered Emilia. The enthusiasm for the expulsion of the French was lost following the death of Pope Leo X on the 1st of December 1521. With his death, a new conclave plagued by hyper-partisan cardinals of the Imperial and French factions elected Charles the Fifth’s former tutor as Adrian VI in January of 1522. As the newly elected pontiff only reached Rome at the end of August, the state was managed by the clergy.
This gave the possibility to many nobles to recover lost territory and positions, such as Della Rovere who recovered his duchy and fomented conflict in central Italy in the following spring. With the death of the de’ Medici Pope, many of their soldiers and funds for the war effort disappeared, so Colonna had to dismiss many of his Swiss mercenaries. Now that there were fewer defenders in Lombardy, the French and Venetians recommenced operations by attacking Parma, successfully defended by Guicciardini. Fortunately for the French, a contingent of 16000 Swiss entered Lombardy and the able light cavalry commander Giovanni delle Bande Nere joined the French.
Colonna meticulously prepared the defense of Milan, blockading the French defenders in the Castle of Milan, and was joined by 4000 German mercenaries. Once joined by the Venetian and the Swiss, Lautrec crossed the river Adda and approached Milan, but the stout defense of Colonna and population repelled the French army. Meanwhile, Francesco Sforza had finally departed Trent with 6000 german mercenaries and had reached Pavia.
Lautrec moved south to attempt to cut off their way to Milan and sent Lescun to Novara who successfully assaulted the town, but still, Sforza slipped through. Lautrec seeing an opportunity battered on the doors of Pavia, but Colonna after a first unsuccessful relief attempt exited Milan with all his army, forcing the French to leave camp and move to Monza. As often was the case in these campaigns, the coffers of the French army were drying up and the Milanese had cut their supply lines.
Battle of Bicocca and Pavia in Italian Wars
The Swiss grew ever more impatient and threatened to leave, so Lautrec ordered to attack on the 27th of April the fortified allied position, going against his better judgment. His adversaries had followed the French army and were now encamped 5 km north of Milan at the manor house of La Bicocca, surrounded by ditches and marshes in a strong defensive position, making it impossible for the strong French cavalry to complete a pincer move; Colonna positioned the arquebuses and cannons behind a ditch and embankment, supported by Spanish pikes and German Landsknechts under von Frundsberg. His men at arms were in the back as reserve, far from enemy artillery to not have another situation like at Ravenna, while his Milanese allies were arriving from the capital.
Following a short skirmish between the light horses, the Swiss mercenaries advanced full with audacity and ferocity on their own insistence, convinced that they would roll over their foes as so many other times had happened. They were accompanied by a number of French knights on foot, while on their left Lescun commanded a contingent of lances, and the Venetians were left in reserve. The Swiss pikes dashed recklessly against the enemy line, but, unfortunately for them, for the first time the arquebuses were used in a systematic way: four-line of shooters advanced, retreated and ducked, allowing their companions to reload: the compact Helvetic battalions crumbled under the heavy fire and once the few that reached the top of the last embankment were met by the heavy pikes, who cut to pieces their enemies and gave the Landsknecht the chance to have revenge on their rivals.
In the back, the French cavalry crossed a stone bridge but found only moderate success in the enemy encampment, and the knights who made it to the baggage train were pushed away by the Spanish cavalry, so Lescun had to withdraw across the bridge while the Milanese nearly encircled him. The Swiss mercenaries were soundly defeated and their confidence took a great hit: the French lost at least 3000 men in front of the enemy trench, including many commanders, while the allies’ casualties were negligible. Following the defeat at La Bicocca Lautrec could do little but retreat; his Swiss allies went back to their homes and only a few cities remained in French hands, so he returned back to France to notify on the situation, soon followed by his brother Lescun.
Prospero Colonna ordered to not pursue the enemies, assuming correctly that the French could not hold on to Lombardy and instead concentrated his efforts on assaulting Genoa, bringing the mercantile city under imperial folds in August. Charles and his closest advisor Mercurino di Gattinara took advantage of their position to pressure the Italian states to contribute to the war effort and pay for his troops. In August Pope Adrian finally arrived in Rome, but he surprisingly refused to be dictated by the imperial envoys sent to him.
Frictions arose between them around the quartering of troops and the fate of the D’Este family, and most importantly the Pope hoped to broker a peace between the two monarchs to instead focus on the Ottoman Turks, who in the same year conquered the island of Rhodes and invaded Hungary. Only when Francis declared himself hostile to this compromise did he cave in and formed an alliance with the Emperor, the Italian states, and Henry of England, who had already supported the Spanish war effort the previous year, while Venice signed a peace agreement with the Emperor disassociating with the French. This was not the only setback for Francis: he had prepared a grand army to continue the conflict in Italy and he was going to lead it personally, but in the summer of 1523, he was kept in his Kingdom by the threat of Spanish attacks in the south, an English raid in Picardy and not least the rebellion of the Duke of Bourbon, the greatest feudal lord of his kingdom.
Bourbon was unable to successfully invade Burgundy with German mercenaries as his conspiracy was uncovered, so he instead escaped to Charles’ court. Meanwhile, a French army now led by the seigneur of Bonnivet crossed the Alps in September and forced the river Ticino. Prospero Colonna retreated to Milan and prepared for another siege that lasted until the middle of November, though many smaller skirmishes continued to take place in Lombardy. The Spanish leader died that December 1523 after a long illness, one of the last great Italian Condottieri, and the viceroy of Naples Charles de Lannoy took over his command. In November Giulio de Medici was proclaimed Pope Clement the Seventh, after his predecessor had died two months before.
During the winter reinforcements arrived at Milan, while French reinforcements and supply lines were cut, thinning their ranks. After having wasted his funds and men, Bonnivet retreated behind the Ticino with his army in a bad shape and was pressured by his adversaries. As they retreated back to France the main force was intercepted while crossing the river Sesia on the 29th of April 1524. In the Battle of Romagnano, the Spanish light cavalry and arquebusier skirmishes with the retreating enemies, killing the famed knight Bayard and taking the French artillery.
Following the battle, the last French cities in Italy were taken. To follow up on the imperial success, Charles of Bourbon and the Marquis of Pescara traversed the Alps to occupy Provence, taking all the major towns including the capital Aix. Only Marseille stoutly resisted for over a month, and when the French king himself approached with a powerful army the Imperials lifted their siege and rapidly turned back by the end of September.
Francis, enraged by the attack on the French heartland and Bourbon’s treachery, rushed into the Po valley with his 40000 men to take advantage of the situation. The Imperials were unable to put up any resistance and retreated to Lodi, leaving Antonio de Leyva with 6000 men, mostly German, to guard Pavia. By the 25th of October Francis’s vanguard reached Milan which was struck by a tremendous plague and in no shape of pose any resistance, so the keys of the city were surrendered. Francis, instead of pursuing the enemy forces as suggested by his more experienced commanders, headed to the second city of the duchy, Pavia, which he started to besiege on the 28th of October. Francis surrounded the city with his army, positioning himself to the west of it.
On the first day, he built two batteries to tear down the walls. After two days of bombardments, they breached the walls, but de Leiva’s Landsknechts and the local population repelled the attack. During November he had his engineers attempt to divert the Ticino River into the Gravellone river bed and to then attack the weaker southern side of the city, but the heavy winter rains swelled the river destroying the progress. De Leyva still had difficulties paying his troops, which he partially solved by using the valuables of the churches of the city, and by assassinating the German commander. With the Kingdom of Naples left defenseless by the Spaniards, Francis saw an opportunity to retake the Kingdom that had once been the main objective of the Italian Wars. He sent the Marquis of Saluzzo to secure Genoa, and a contingent of around 6000 men under John Stuart Duke of Albany to the south.
They were joined at Lucca by another 3000 infantry and continued south towards Siena and Lazio, where the Orsini and Colonna were assembling more men. Meanwhile, Charles’ army was waiting for reinforcements but the Venetians were not budging from their positions while the Pope took an ambiguous stance towards the two monarchs, first inviting Francis to Naple and then pleading him to retreat. Giovanni delle Bande Nere once again switched sides and joined the French, but Charles of Bourbon finally arrived with 6000 Landsknechts and 500 Netherland horses, bolstering the imperial numbers up to around 20000 men. The Marquis of Pescara took command and sprang into action, marching to Pavia arriving there on the 5th of February, and setting camp east of the park north of the city.
The French army had continued the winter siege, detrimental to the morale of the troops, passively blocking the entrances to the city: Francis was sure he could starve out the city and would not wait for spring. When the Imperial army came Francis rearranged his camp in a more defensible position along the Vernacula brook and for three weeks smaller raids and skirmishes took place.
During these three weeks, the condottiero Giovanni delle Bande Nere was injured in a sally of the garrison, thus leaving to recuperate with most of his men, while 6000 Grisons mercenaries were recalled to defend their homeland. As the French had just lost 8000 men in a week, the Imperial commanders decided to strike before their own army dissolved because funds had dried up: a small contingent of Spanish cavalry managed to disguise themselves and entered Pavia to give the orders to the garrison. By the 23rd of February, the Imperial army was composed of around 17000 infantry from Spain, Italy, and Germany, 1000 men at arms and light cavalry and 17 cannons, while the garrison in Pavia numbered around 6000 men.
The French army numbered around 18000 infantry from Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and France, 1300 men at arms and 53 cannons. Pescara would take command of the battle on the Imperial side and ordered the evening of the 23rd of February to move north along the wall while the artillery in the camp continued to fire. Silently a group of engineers spent all the night destroying the wall of the Park of Mirabello, an old hunting ground built by the Visconti north of Pavia, creating a number of breaches. The French knew that the Imperials were on the move, but they believed they were retreating back to Milan. Francis felt secure behind the walls and did not believe an attack was coming, as he thought it being too audacious.
At around 5 am of the 24th of February, a vanguard of 3000 arquebuses under the Marquis del Vasto silently entered first into the park and moved towards Castel Mirabello, where it was believed Francis was located with the goal of capturing; once they reached Mirabello they stormed the castle and took the camp inhabited by army followers, filled with merchants, cooks, and prostitutes who were slaughtered, starting to loot the camp until their commanders brought them back in line.
At the same time, a contingent of French scouts under Tiercelin had spotted the unusual noises and had reported back to camp. Tiercelin then rode with 1000 light cavalry to harass the enemies who were setting themselves up, capturing the enemy light artillery and skirmishing with their counterparts. More and more imperial soldiers came into the park and came in line.
Francis was woken up by his guards and ordered his gendarmes to prepare for a charge: the finest nobles of the realm would march with their king, and around 900 formed up around him. The morning fog and the uneven terrain of the park reduced the visibility of the battlefield, and the French had difficulty discerning their adversaries. Whether because Francis believed that the enemy in front of him was just a smaller diversion contingent, or because he had to give time to his infantry to form up, the French king ordered a charge.
The wall of iron smashed into the Imperial cavalry who could do little against their better-armored counterparts and were dispersed. Around this time three cannon shots were fired from the camp: it was the signal for the garrison to sally out against the besiegers, this way cutting off the French soldiers south of the main camp from the rest of the army.
Suddenly the French knights, isolated from their infantry and believing they had won the battle, were assailed by del Vasto’s arquebuses who had returned to the main army and were mowed down volley after volley. The French king fought with valor as his retinue sacrificed themselves for the safety of the King, who got trapped under his horse after an arquebus shot killed it. To the east, the German Landsknechts under von Frundsberg and Spanish infantry began a fierce melee against the Flemish Landsknechts of the Black Band and a contingent of Swiss mercenaries.
The two bands of Landsknechts hated each other, as the Black Band soldiers were considered traitors, and the casualty number was high. What broke the French infantry was the arrival of the garrison of Pavia from the rear, which crushed the formation. Francis and his surviving knights surrendered to the Spanish cavalry under de Lannoy, who even had to kill a few of their own infantry to save the King, and took him to a nearby farmstead. The French infantry that did not participate tried to escape over the Ticino river, many drowning.
The survivors were taken by the Duke of Alencon, who had not participated in the battle for unknown reasons, and headed north. By 9 o’clock, the French army had lost between 6 and 9 thousand soldiers, while the Imperial lost only around 1000. Many of the French commanders were either killed or captured, beheading temporarily the French state of its leadership. Francis wrote to his mother “I have lost everything except my life and honor”, and now that he was imprisoned, Charles had all the cards in his hands… With the capture of Francis and the French army making their way through the Alps, the mother of the King and regent, Louise of Savoy, prepared the defenses of the kingdom and started to negotiate the release of her son.
Fifth Italian war
Charles requested the renunciation by the French monarchy of any claim over Flanders, Artois, Milan, and Naples and the relinquishing of Burgundy, requests deemed excessive and humiliating by Francis. The Emperor had been cautious and did not take any other military action following his victory, but the Italian states still worried over the excessive power that the Emperor had. Calling for a revival of the fourteenth-century system of Italian balance among the states and a renaissance of Italian pride, the Venetians sought to form a new league by using the anger towards arrogant Imperial envoys who demanded money, and quartering of troops. The Pope refused, threatened by Ghibellines, and instead reached an agreement with Charles, but the young Duke of Milan Francesco Sforza intended to join in, as he worried that he would become a satellite state of Charles and burdened by the upkeep of the many soldiers in his borders.
However, the conspiracy was uncovered and the Castle of Milan was occupied by the Spanish forces. The situation was complicated by the death of Fernando d’Avalos in December of 1525 leaving a vacuum in the imperial leadership. In March of 1526, Francis was set free in exchange for giving up the previously mentioned claims and the Duchy of Burgundy. Although the Spanish had taken his sons as hostages, Francis refused to ratify the treaty and opened up diplomatic channels with the Italian states and England. Charles, short of funds, could not react militarily and on the 22nd of May 1526, the Holy League of Cognac was formed by France, the Pope, Venice, Milan, and Florence. The league was technically open for Charles, as its goal was officially to repel the Ottomans and the Protestant reformation, though one condition was to acknowledge the autonomy of the Italian states.
Knowing that the Emperor would not accept this condition, Clement and Venice attacked preemptively. The Venetian and Papal forces commanded by Francesco Maria della Rovere advanced in June with 22.000 men occupying Lodi first and then reaching the walls of Milan to assist the Duke. The Duke of Bourbon, however, managed to reinforce the city before them, and although the League had doubled the men and the citizens of Milan had rebelled against the Imperials, their commander decided to retreat to the astonishment of his subordinates.
The duke of Urbino excused himself blaming the lack of a promised Swiss incursion from the north; to show some kind of result, he then took his army to Cremona which was captured in September. Left alone, Francesco Sforza reached an agreement with his besiegers and surrendered his castle. The League’s cohesion took a hit in September. Pope Clement had attempted to subvert the imperial friendly governments of Genoa and Siena, but he suffered Imperial retaliation by the Colonna who entered the Eternal City and sacked some neighborhoods on the 20th of September.
Clement, now besieged in Castel Sant’Angelo, had to agree to a truce and recalled his troops. Meanwhile, the 16.000-strong imperial Landsknecht army entered Italy in November. The League’s army was by this point crumbling, but Giovanni dalle Bande Nere took up the task of harassing the contingent and keeping it from reaching Milan. He was partially successful and forced them south, but the rulers of Mantua and Este helped the Germans with supplies and artillery. While the Germans crossed the Po river at Governolo the cavalry of the de Medici engaged their rearguard, but the League’s soldiers were surprised by the enemy artillery and Giovanni perished.
The Germans and Imperials in Milan joined up in February and in March 1527 an army of over 30000 men, however, Bourbon soon found it impossible to manage the hungry troops which continued to move south even though Clement had signed a new truce. Meanwhile, Florence was reinforced by the League’s armies, who quelled an anti-Medici revolt and coerced the Florentines to enter a new league with France and Venice. Bourbon’s mutinous army ignored the strongly defended Florence and instead entered Latium lightning-fast, reaching the walls of Rome on the fifth of May.
Sack of Rome and Siege of Florence during Italian Wars
Clement had dismissed most of his troops after the truce to not pay them, expecting that Charles would have recalled them or that Della Rovere would defend him. In Rome, there were only around 3000 men under Renzo da Ceri Orsini, while the Imperials had been joined by deserters and brigands. On the dawn of the 6th, the Imperials, covered by a thick mist, invaded the old Leonine walls: a first assault was pushed back by Renzo da Ceri’s volunteers but at the second assault they pushed through. Charles of Bourbon lost his life while climbing the walls, shot by an arquebus: his death galvanized his men who entered the Vatican and then spread through the city. Pope Clement, who was praying in Saint Peter, barely managed to escape to castel Sant’Angelo as his Swiss guard sacrificed themselves for him. After the Pope refused to compromise with them, the mercenaries divided up the city and started a sack that lasted weeks.
No man or woman was spared, rape was common, people were tortured to extort money, and churches were ransacked. The concentration of men and the destruction of the sewer system started a plague that spared no one: from a population of 50000 Rome was reduced to 30000 because of deaths and refugees. The sack came as a total shock for the Italians and Europeans, and it would be a great stain on the legacy of Charles. The League’s army arrived 15 days later but soon after left as the commanders saw it impossible to save the Pope after a few skirmishes. In the Eternal City, no one among the Imperial commanders wanted to take the responsibility of mercenaries, as more men piled in the looting, and the soldiers were without control. Clement finally surrendered, agreed to pay the Imperials 400000 ducats and to give up a number of towns in his possession.
Venice took control of Ravenna and a coup in Florence overthrew the de’ Medici government. Some Imperial soldiers still refused to leave: many had been struck by the plague or left the city with loot, but others were still waiting for their payment, and only by the start of 1528 the city was rid of mercenary presence. Charles in Spain ordered to free Clement but had little sway over his troops in Italy, and the Pope had to cough up more money and hostages to be freed and later escaped from the mercenary custody. Following the Sack of Rome, France and England scrambled to form an alliance. In August, Francis financed another army to be sent into Italy under the Count of Lautrec.
The Spanish commander at Milan, de Leyva, had already struggled to keep his men in line and repelled a number of attacks, but now faced a greater threat from the west. The French took Genoa, Alessandria, and brutally sacked Pavia, as a punishment for the resistance in 1525. Instead of going to Rome, Lautrec opted to attack the Imperial supply base of Naples and marched along the Adriatic coast, entering the Kingdom of Naples in February 1528. After taking control of Abruzzo the transalpines pushed into Apulia, where they were followed by an Imperial army under Orange, and began to besiege Naples: this would prove to be a disaster, as the lack of supplies and the spread of disease took its toll on the French army. During the siege, a naval battle was fought at Capo d’Orso and Andrea Doria switched his allegiance to the Imperials, while Lautrec died struck by the plague in August.
This caused a general retreat of the men still strong enough to travel. Still, the war in Naples would continue for a year, as pockets of resistance in Abruzzo and Venetian-held cities in Apulia held out. Meanwhile, de Leyva had continued his campaign around Milan, as another French contingent entered Piedmont and sacked Pavia once again. However, the French soon lost Genoa to Doria who entered the port with a small contingent, striking at the French communication lines. Francis’ army attempted to retake it, but sickness and lack of funds once again proved detrimental, making Genoa independent again following half a century of foreign rule with Doria ruling it behind the scenes. For the next few months, only small skirmishes along the Genoese border and raids in Lombardy occurred, culminating in the French defeat of Landriano.
The monarchs of Europe were already holding talks to conclude this conflict. Charles clearly had the upper hand, but the threat of the Ottomans and the spread of Protestantism forced him to divide his resources. The Peace of Cambrai signed on the 5th of August was a repeat of the peace of Madrid, with the exception that Charles dropped his claims on Burgundy and the French princes could be ransomed; other states were not invited to the talks and Francis’ allies in Italy were left at the mercy of the Emperor. Previously, in June, Charles had concluded the peace of Barcelona with the Pope: the emperor promised to give back Ravenna, Cervia, Modena, and Reggio, reinstated the Sforza in Milan and the de Medici in Florence as Dukes. In exchange, the Pope confirmed the investiture of the Kingdom of Naples, made concessions on taxes of ecclesiastical property and absolved the Emperor for the sack of Rome.
While the talks were going, the Emperor himself landed in Genoa with an army of 10 thousand in August 1529, as he was still in conflict with Venice and Francesco Sforza, and hostilities did continue in the following months. However, Charles was not keen on prolonging the conflict and with the support of the pope made peace with Francesco Sforza, who retained his duchy for a heavy cost, and Venice, who had to give up their conquests in Romagna and Apulia and pay reparations. After having been crowned King of Italy, on the 24th of February 1530, Charles was crowned emperor in Bologna by the Pope, in an event full of allegories that were meant to sanction the hegemony of the Emperor all over Europe. Charles then left for Mantua, where he elevated the Gonzagas to dukes and confirmed the Este’s possession of Modena and Reggio, and then to Germany to deal with the rebellious protestants.
In late 1532 Charles once again returned to Italy and met Clement in the Second Congress of Bologna, where he asked the pope for a Church council, which Clement refused to do in a short timeframe, and for the formation of a league with the Pope and other Italian states. This league existed only on paper as most states refused openly to contribute to it as it was clearly just a tool to pay Spanish troops in Italy. Following the treaty, Charles was upholding his part of the bargain with Clement and by October his army under the Prince of Orange was besieging Florence, whose Savonarola-inspired republican government had come to power following the Sack of Rome. The starting army of 11000 men was not enough to surround the city, but more reinforcements came from Lombardy, bolstering the numbers to an impressive 30000 men.
The Florentine popular government began to persecute anyone who favored a return of the Medici. They chose to rely on citizen militia and mercenaries instead of looking for outside support and frustrated the Imperial siege by frequently sallying out of the walls. Most of the fighting did not take place under the walls but in the Tuscan countryside, where the war developed into a game of who could secure most supplies and attrite the enemies. One of the commanders of these raiding parties, Francesco Ferrucci, managed to take Volterra from the Papal forces.
He was later sent to the north to take either Prato or Pistoia. Still, he was intercepted near Pistoia in the Battle of Gavinana, where overwhelming Imperial and Spanish forces defeated the Florentines after a valiant resistance. More importantly for the Imperials, the Prince of Orange was killed by an arquebus shot in the battle. Still, the Imperials were greatly outnumbering the defenders, so following the defeat, the Florentine commander began to negotiate with the Pope to save the city from a sack like the one Rome had suffered and to salvage his interests in his hometown, Perugia. While a few diehards remained, the majority of the population was ready to capitulate, and the siege ended on the 12th of August 1530, when Florence surrendered to the Emperor.
After a year with a transitional government, in the summer of 1531, Alessandro de Medici came to Florence with a decree from the Emperor that declared him “Duke of the republic”. He spent the following year wrestling for more power and influence against the aristocracy, but the era of the Italian comuni and republics had definitely ended. With the situation in Italy seemingly pacified, Charles V focused on other issues requiring his attention.
Sixth and seventh Italian Wars
He traveled to Germany to confront the Protestant reformation that was gaining traction among many Imperial princes who had formed the Schmalkaldic League, though not much came of his travel. Another important threat to his Empire was the Ottoman Turks, who had conquered most of Hungary and in 1529 had reached the walls of Vienna, not to mention the high activity Barbary corsairs in the Mediterranean waters.
Charles himself led the expedition that conquered Tunis in 1535, one of the high points of his reign. Despite the failures of the previous years, Francis I still wanted to retake his possessions. He took every opportunity he could to obstruct Charles’ hegemony, conspiring with the German Lutherans and formalizing the contacts with the Ottoman Sultan, stimulating offensives in Hungary and on the Mediterranean Islands. In Italy, he entertained diplomatic contacts with Venice, who had been left out of the league organized by the emperor, and Pope Clemence, unhappy that Charles had not returned him to Parma and Modena.
The two met in October 1533 when Francis’ son Henry d’Orleans married the twelve-year-old Caterina de’ Medici, a niece of the Pope. With this, Clement hoped to secure his family’s position in Florence and to have a second option if relations with Charles turned sour, but this also gave Francis a way back into the peninsula. Clement passed away in September 1534 and was succeeded by Pope Paul the Third. On the night of the 1st of November 1535, the Duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza, died. The news came as a surprise to no one as the duke had been ailing for some years, and he had been unable to sire an heir.
De Leyva, who had been left in Lombardy, took control of the main centers as the duchy devolved to the Emperor because when a noble of the Empire died, his titles were returned to his overlord. Charles, unsure if he should keep the duchy for the economic and strategic benefits or assign it to an Italian prince to conserve peace, decided to temporarily hold on to the state as he waited for the reaction of other Italian states and France. The French king would not tolerate the expansion of Charles and prepared to occupy a bridgehead into Italy, the Duchy of Savoy.
The Savoyard state was in a precarious position, with their possession divided by the Alps. The current duke, Charles the Good, was uncle to the French king but had aligned himself with the Emperor through marriage. In the winter of 1536, the French took advantage of a conflict between the Calvinist Geneva and Savoy by sending an army to occupy the French side of the duchy, and in March, another army entered Piedmont and took Turin. Francis claimed for himself all the transalpine part of the duchy as inheritance through his mother, Louise of Savoy, as well as Nice, Asti and Vercelli. Charles got the news of the death of Francesco Sforza and the invasion of the Savoyard duchy while he was in Naples. He raised an army and left for Rome, where he was triumphantly received by the new Pope Paul III, who came from one of the lesser baronial families of central Italy.
He showed himself to be much more of a statesman in international diplomacy than his predecessor. He refused to denounce any side of the coming conflict and declared he would remain neutral. Meanwhile, de Leyva received reinforcements and commenced retaking some of the occupied towns in Piedmont, but not Turin. Charles, once he had reached Piedmont, decided to counter-attack into Provence while another Spanish-Imperial army advanced into Picardy. The French adopted a scorched earth tactic in Provence that reduced the available supplies for Charle’s Army, and an epidemic decimated Charle’s men, including de Leyva. The Emperor was thus forced to abandon the expedition in September just before taking the main goal, Marseille, and the army in the Low countries also retreated.
While Charles was in Provence, French partisans in Italy, assembled at Mirandola, had reinforced the French forces in Turin and took some towns between Saluzzo and Turin on their way. When Charles returned to Italy, he went to Genova and left for Spain, leaving Alfonso d'Avalos, Marquis del Vasto in command. In January 1537, Alessandro de Medici was assassinated, and the son of Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, the teenage Cosimo de Medici, had to succeed him but without being confirmed by the Emperor. Francis used this transition to send Florentine republican exile to hurt one of Charle’s allies in Italy, but the expedition was defeated at Montemurlo by troops loyal to the Medici. Worried that Cosimo might turn to Francis for help, Charles granted him the title of Duke.
The conflict in Piedmont continued in 1537 when, in March, French reinforcements came to relieve the garrisons there and went on the offensive, but a lack of coins and discipline allowed Del Vasto to counter-attack and lock the French in just Turin, Pinerolo and Savigliano. In the autumn, Francis himself entered Piedmont and took over most of the region, as a truce was signed in November. A peace was finally brokered by the Pope in Nice in June 1538 between the two sides. The Peace of Nice confirmed the status quo in Italy, with Francis allowed to keep his conquests. Discussions to arrive at a lasting peace through marriage continued the following years when Charles traveled through France to the Netherlands, but no decision could be reached. In autumn Charles went on an expedition in North Africa, with the goal of conquering Algers, but that campaign ended in a complete failure because of bad weather and stiff resistance.
The financial and military situation the Emperor found himself in and the promised support of Suleiman enticed Francis once again, so with the casus belli received by the murder of a French diplomat on Milanese soil, he declared war in June of 1542.
In contrast to the previous wars, the seventh Italian war did not have Lombardy as the main theater: by this time the conflict had evolved into a succession of European wars between the Habsburg and the Valois over the dominance of the continent. The French military attacked in three points: to the south, an army under the Dauphin Henry and Claude d’Annebault besieged Perpignan in Roussillon but were repelled by relieving Castillian nobles. In the Netherlands Charles, Duke of Orleans briefly occupied Luxembourg which was recaptured.
In 1543, the offensive recommenced with the Duke of Cleves and Jüllich allying with France and attacking Brabant, while the French invaded Flanders, taking Lillers and Landrecies. Charles, who had allied with Henry of England, soon responded by occupying the capital of Jüllich, Düren, and besieged Landrecies, but the French army relieved the garrison. In Piedmont, the conflict was more restrained, with del Vasto going on the offensive with little success and the theater ended in a stalemate.
In the summer of 1543, the Savoyard city of Nice was first besieged in July by a French fleet, repelled by Andre Doria, and in August by a combined French-Turkish fleet which took and sacked the city. Charles of Savoy came to relieve the fortress in September, lifting the siege, and the Ottoman fleet spent the winter quartering in Toulon. The combined attack of Muslim and Christian forces and their wintering in a Christian port was scandalous for the contemporaries and Francis had to downplay the Turkish involvement. Del Vasto, after obtaining more money from his emperor, deviated north to attack some French positions, cutting off their communication lines.
Battle of Ceresole in Italian War
In the spring of 1544 a French army under François de Bourbon, Count of Enghien entered Piedmont and besieged Carignano, previously captured by Del Vasto and a thorn in the side of French communications. As Del Vasto approached to relieve the town, he sent up camp in the village of Ceresole, a few kilometers from his enemy. On the 14th of April Bourbon moved to the village to confront him. Both armies lined up for battle around a plane without any obstacles, positioned on two small slopes.
The exact number of troops is uncertain: it seems that the French had around 13000 to 15000 men, of which around 1500 were light and heavy French-Italian cavalry, while the Imperials had either around the same number or slightly more at around 18000 thousand infantry and 1000 cavalry; the two armies also had around 20 cannons. Both armies were divided up into three blocks of infantry supported by three divisions of cavalry.
The battle commenced with both sides sending forward a few hundred arquebusiers and their cannons to try to gain a positional advantage and flanking their adversaries. After the skirmish had been going on for a few hours del Vasto sent his florentine light cavalry to wipe away the enemy shooters, but they were met by the enemy cavalry: at the same time, del Vasto ordered all units to advance.
The impetus of the French cavalry under des Thermes was so strong that first, it smashed the Florentines, who were driven back into the Italian infantry, and then they themselves cut deep into the Italians. The light cavalry was surrounded and had to surrender to the French, but it took some time for them to reorganize. Meanwhile, in the center the Landsknechts of del Vasto had to split up to confront both the Gascon and Swiss contingents of the French: the Gascons and Germans advanced with handgunners in their second ranks, causing many casualties in the front ranks when they met.
As the German advanced at a fast pace they lost some of their cohesion: first, they crashed into the French, then the Swiss themselves charged into their enemies. The brutal pike to pike combat was broken when French Gendarmes flanked the Landsknechts and trusted into their side, sending them reeling down the hill, while the Spanish men at arms were repelled by the Swiss after a single charge.
On the left the situation went worse for the French: although their horse archers routed the Neapolese light cavalry, the units from Gruyeres panicked when confronted by the Spanish and German veteran soldiers and ran away, followed by the Italian contingent. Count d'Enghien and his men at arms, who were accompanied by 100 French nobles, charged the veterans three times who killed many of his horses. The French general thought the day was lost, as he could not see the situation in other parts of the battlefield.
However, the veterans began to retreat having received the news from the rest of the battlefield. and after the Swiss had massacred the Landsknechts in their retreat turned around and with the Gascon pursued the retreating veterans. Most of them, to not be slaughtered, threw their pikes to the ground and surrendered to the French knights, though many were killed without mercy. At the battle of Ceresole, the Imperials lost around 6000 to 7000 men and a further 3000 were taken prisoner, while the French casualties were probably around 2000. With the defeat of the Imperial army at Cerosole, the way to Lombardy was wide open for the French.
However, the imperials were massing troops along the Rhine river so no reinforcements could be sent. Del Vasto consolidated his position in Milan to defend the city, intercepted a contingent of Italian reinforcements and defeated them at Serravalle. The last event of the campaign in Piemont was the surrender of Alba to the French, which was shortly followed by a truce. Meanwhile, a combined English and Imperial army invaded northern France in May 1544.
The imperials after moderate success were bogged down in the Siege of Saint-Dizier, while the English invaded Picardy and besieged Boulogne. In August Charles managed to take Saint-Dizier, but the strong resistance had halted his timetable. The Emperor decided to raid parts of Champagne and concluded operations in September, while Francis used a strategy of containment to limit the damage. On the 18th of September 1544, the Peace of Crépy was signed between Francis and Charles, returning to the status quo of the peace of Nice and a marriage proposal was arranged between a Habsburg princess and Charles d’Orlean, with either the Low Country or Milan as her dowry.
Charles was unsure whether to sacrifice Milan, which had been so costly to defend but at the same time, vital for the connection of his empire, or the more peripheral but hereditary lands of the Low Countries. Charles was more inclined to sacrifice the former but the death of the duke of Orlean the following year dissolved any need for a decision, so he invested his son Philip with the duchy. Although Charles made peace with Francis, the war continued between France and England. Henry besieged Boulogne himself and the town capitulated in September, ending the campaign for that year.
Francis responded by invading the Isle of Wight in 1545, but was repelled. He also sent reinforcements to Scotland to continue the never-ending border skirmishes and besieged Boulogne in the summer to retake it - an effort that ended in a stalemate. Neither party wanted to continue the war, so an agreement was reached in June 1546 leaving Boulogne in Henry’s hands. Both Henry and Francis died in 1547, succeeded by Edward VI and Henry II. The new French King Henry II, although interested in keeping the Savoyard territories, was more focused on his northern border and supported the Scottish struggle to fend off English encroachment.
War of Parma during Italian Wars
He also continued his father’s policy of aligning his interests with those of the Ottoman Sultans and supporting the German Protestant Princes, as he held a grudge for the way Charles V had treated him and his brother in the years they were held as hostages in Madrid. In the aftermath of the Italian War of 1542–1546, Emperor Charles had to once again maintain the balance of power. Evermore tired with the conflict on the Apennine peninsula, he was more interested in combating Suleiman the Magnificent and the German protestants, but as he was getting older, also had to contend with the tensions running high among the Habsburgs over the inheritance of his Empire. He delegated most of the Italian responsibilities to his lieutenants, who were often arrogant towards the old Italian aristocracy, making few friends there.
The most important of these was the new Governor of Milan Ferrante Gonzaga, who was the champion of the Italo-Spanish interests in Charles’ court, competing for influence with the Imperial-Burgundian faction. The prior believed that Milan and Piedmont were vital for the crown’s interest, while the latter saw it as a drain of resources to defend them. Gonzaga also came to clash with the ambitions of Pope Paul and the nepotistic machination he was preparing for his family members: he had already attempted to put his son Pierluigi Farnese on the Milanese throne, and in 1545 he had given him Parma and Piacenza as two duchies to rule for himself. Charles was quite unhappy with this, as he considered the two cities as part of the Milanese state.
In 1547 a conspiracy organized by Gonzaga succeeded in assassinating Pierluigi, and Piacenza was swiftly occupied by the Imperials. However, Pierluigi’s son Ottavio Farnese entered the city of Parma where he was accepted as lord and refused to surrender it. Other areas where Gonzaga attempted to expand the Imperial influence were Genoa and especially Siena. The historically pro-imperial Tuscan town had some particularly turbulent years, stuck between the Papal State and the Florentines, and had to juggle between the Medici’s ambitions to take over the city, not to mention a number of other attempts to become governors of the city by others, and the machinations of the Emperor to assert direct control over the city.
The Imperial representatives in the city had caused some uprisings by attempting to take control of coastal forts and to build a fortress in Siena, not to mention the request to quarter troops in the town. The arrogant and bullying attitude of the imperials would soon backfire, as more and more princes saw the Spanish presence in Italy as tyrannical. The situation in Emilia remained complicated in the later years of the fifteen forties. Pope Paul urged Charles to restore Piacenza to him, but did not dare to take any military actions and instead attempted to gain Henry of France’s support, whose daughter Diane had married Ottavio’s brother Orazio. Pope Paul died in November 1549, and although his successor Julius III confirmed Ottavio’s possession of Parma, the Farnese did not feel secure and sought French support.
Both Julius and Charles were not particularly keen on going to war, but in May 1551 Henry had sent his agents to the region and Gonzaga responded by raiding Parma’s countryside. The Pope sent an army under his nephew to Bologna and they started to besiege Mirandola, while Gonzaga took Colorno. Thus another Italian war started with a proxy war, called the War of Parma, between the Farnese, supported by Henry, and Pope Julius, supported by Charles. In September, Gonzaga had to hurry to Piedmont as king Henry had now officially declared war.
French columns advanced into the region and took a few towns, but when Gonzaga arrived, the situation devolved into a stalemate because of the chronic lack of funds on both sides until more French volunteers arrived. In Emilia, as continuous skirmishes took place, the siege of Mirandola was going poorly and the Imperials did not have enough men to blockade Parma. The war was proving too costly for the Pope, so he came to terms with Henry in April 1552, signing a truce with him and Ottavio, and Charles joined in a month later. The truce did not cover Piedmont, where the war continued as Gonzaga invaded Saluzzo, but other events in Europe forced Gonzaga to go on the defensive.
Charles and his forces were in fact on the back foot. In August 1551, the Ottomans had besieged and taken Tripoli from the Knight Hospitaller who were under Spain’s protection. In 1552, Henry had concluded an alliance with the Protestant princes of the Empire, and a combined attack was made against the Empire. In March the French king advanced into Lorraine and took possession of the Three Bishoprics - Metz, Toul, and Verdun, but failed to take Strasbourg, while simultaneously Albert of Brandeburg attacked Ausburg and Maurice of Saxony descended upon Tirol, forcing Charles to escape from Innsbruck, which was a huge blow to the emperor’s prestige. Charles’ brother and the heir apparent of the empire Ferdinand made peace with the Luther princes granting them religious freedom, which would be confirmed by Charles in 1555 with the Peace of Augsburg.
The peace allowed Charles to assemble a force of 50000 men and besiege Metz in September of 1552. The town was defended by the Duke of Guise, who resisted until January when sickness and deserters had done the hard work for the defenders and decimated the Imperial camp, so Charles lifted the siege. Campaigns also took place on the northern French border in 1553, where the young duke of Savoy Emanuele Filiberto was showing great leadership as a general, and in 1554, where Charles fought for the last time in person at the Battle of Renty. By this time, Charles had begun to suffer from depression, and between 1554 and 1556 he gradually transferred his states and responsibilities to his son Philip, although he did not completely give up his influence and would often quarrel with his son, while his brother Ferdinand became the new Holy Roman Emperor.
Meanwhile in Italy, Imperial representative Mendoza incessantly bullied Siena to have the fort built to guard it, which in July 1552 gave rise to a revolt, supported by all factions and classes in the city which was quite a feat. The revolt soon expelled the Spanish garrison in the city, and the francophile princes and exiles in Italy, meeting at Chioggia, saw this as an opportunity to rid Tuscany of Imperial presence and sent reinforcement to the city, while the allies of Charles, the Pope, and de Medici, also reacted. The Sienese and Spanish quickly reached an agreement that allowed them to destroy the fortress and get rid of the garrison, but the Spaniards still planned to send an army to Tuscany, both to punish the rebellious city and to distract Henry of France from the northern battlefields.
However, the allied Turko-French fleet stationed around the island of Ponza defeated the Imperial navy, and only when it left at the start of winter could the Spanish begin to ship men to Italy. The Spanish expedition spent six months brutally sacking the countryside and miserably failing to take Montalcino in a siege, and soon retreated to defend from the Ottoman raids. The French and Ottoman fleets under Dragut continued to wreak havoc on the Italian coast, not without controversy between the two sides, and stretched the Spanish supply lines. In 1553 at Porto Ercole the French ferried troops to the Genoese-held Corsica, which France wanted to use as a springboard into Tuscany, while the Ottomans pillaged Elba and later massacred the garrison of Bonifacio.
However, as the French tried to limit Dragut’s raiding, a collaboration between the two fleets broke down. The invasion of Corsica was successful in the beginning, but the Genoese soon retaliated, taking most of the island the following year. Only in 1555, a new Turkish fleet would assist the French in some unsuccessful sieges. The skirmishes would continue to the end of the war.
Meanwhile, Cosimo de Medici decided to take the situation into his own hands on the Imperial side. After having failed to resolve the situation diplomatically, he raised an army and, by portraying himself as a loyal vassal defending the honor of the Empire, gained the approval of Charles to hold the conquered territory temporarily. The Sienese were now commanded by the Florentine exile Piero Strozzi, sent by Henry. He was a member of the rival plutocratic party antagonist to Cosimo and hoped to expel de Medicis from Florence.
Cosimo’s army was led by the Marquis of Marignano Gian Giacomo Medici who encamped north of Siena to blockade the city by ruthlessly ravaging the territory. Strozzi decided to counterattack to alleviate some pressure from the siege and he hoped to stir unrest in Florence. He first went to Val di Nievole, and later to Val di Chiana, where he failed to take Arezzo. Pursued by Gian Giacomo Medici, the French-Sienese force was intercepted at Marciano della Chiana, and at the Battle of Scannagallo the army of Siena was destroyed, and with it its hope of freedom. The siege continued until April 1555, when Siena capitulated to Cosimo, while the French troops and 700 citizens went to Montalcino to resist “the Republic of Siena in Montalcino”.
Philip, desperate to have some allies in Italy, granted Cosimo the government of Siena. Henry did not help Siena much because he gave higher priority to Piedmont, where the French and their commander Brissac found much success. After Gonzaga had retreated in summer 1552 the French retook the lost ground and in spring 1553 they could threaten Liguria. In the autumn Vercelli, the administrative center of the remnant duchy of Savoy, was briefly occupied and raided by the French. In 1554 Gonzaga was recalled to Brussel but his replacement did not have much military experience, and Brissac was quick to take advantage of this by conquering Ivrea and Casale. The arrival of one of the best imperial commanders - the Duke of Alba’s did not improve the situation in Lombardy, as he could not pay the troops.
By the start of 1556, France was in control of nearly all of Piedmont. In Rome, Pope Julius died in March 1555 and was succeeded by Pope Paul IV. Coming from Naples, he envisioned an Italy free of Spanish influences and soon entered into an alliance with the King of France, offering him Milan and Naples. The king’s favorite Francis, Duke of Guise, laid the groundwork for a French descent into Italy, hammering out the details of the league with the Pope and the Duke of Ferrara. Meanwhile, the constable of France Montmorency, who was strongly against undertaking an Italian expedition, convinced Henry to sign a truce in Vaucelles with Philip in February 1556. Pope Paul, unhappy with the newly signed truce, provoked the Spanish by harassing their supporters, the main target being the Colonna family who had their estates confiscated and ceded to the pope’s family members.
In September 1556 the governor of Naples, the Duke of Alba preemptively attacked the Papal State. He swiftly advanced, leaving behind fortified positions, heading for Rome. After the city was besieged, an armistice was signed and Alba left a few garrisoned castles around Rome as he waited for the Pope and Philip to reach an agreement. This agreement was never signed as in January of 1557, the Duke of Guise had traversed the Alps to come to help the Pope. After helping the French forces in Piedmont to take the town of Valenza, the French commander uncertain on what to do went to Rome to assess the situation, where and the Pope encouraged him to head for Naples. Advancing along the Adriatic coast, the French army was stopped at the first roadblock at Civitella and left in May on orders of Henry. Papal and Colonna troops had skirmishes in the summer, but Guise could not help the Pope as news from Flanders reached him, and he had to return home.
Alba jumped on the occasion and arrived under the walls of Rome: a lenient peace was finally reached between Spain and the Pope. The conflict in Italy would continue on a smaller scale in Piedmont, Corsica, Emilia, and Siena up til 1558. Guise’s campaign in Naples was stopped because of the situation on the French northern front: King Philip had assembled an enormous army for the time, numbering over 50000 troops from Germany, Netherlands, Spain, and Italy under the command of the young Duke of Savoy Emanuele Filiberto. Also, the English would join the war on the Spanish side with 7000 men as their Queen Mary of England had married Philip of Spain in 1554.
The duke started his operations in June heading towards Champagne, intending to draw the French army there, to then sharply turn west and invest the fortress of Saint Quentin with his vanguard, the main fortress of Vermandois. The French defense was coordinated by Constable Montmorency, who managed to only assemble an army of around 20000 infantry, more than half German mercenaries, and 6000 horses, as most of the best French soldiers were in Piemont and Latium.
Battle of St. Quentin in Italian Wars
The Spanish army began to siege the city on the 2nd of August, building trenches and batteries. The governor of Picardy, Admiral of France Gaspare de Coligny barely managed to enter the town in the night between the 2nd and 3rd of August, forcing a weak point in the encirclement with half of his forces, the other getting lost in the dark. The city of Saint Quentin lay on the northern bank of the River Somme, which ran in smaller streams surrounded by marshes, an impossible barrier for an army. Savoy positioned his army along the main roads into the city, with a Spanish contingent taking over the southern suburbs without much problem and blockading the bridge over the Somme, thus cutting the communications between the 1000 defenders and the main army.
Montmorency had stationed his army at La Fère, south of the town, and attempted the following night to reinforce the garrison. This failed as captured knights revealed the attempt and in the night of the third, the reinforcements meant for the city under St. André were met by a salvo of arquebus fire. In a somewhat desperate and certainly daring attempt, Montmorency ordered an advance on the night of the 9th of August. His plan was to take advantage of a section of clear river water to the west and ferry some of his troops under the walls.
On the morning of the tenth, the infantry arrived at the location with their 6 or 7 large boats, while the cavalry harassed the Spanish contingent to the south of the city which fortified itself in the suburb of Faubourg de l’Isle. There was a small ford to the north of Saint Quentin at Rouvroy, which Montmorency had considered not big enough to be of great importance so he sent only a squadron of German “reiters”, pistoleers on horseback. The French began to slowly embark on their boats, while a few field pieces began to shoot across the river towards an enemy encampment, but the muddy embankments and marshy terrain hindered operations, slowing them down to a crawl.
After a few hours, only 450 men had entered the city while others drowned, were stuck in the dirt, or got lost. The Duke of Savoy, after the initial surprise, quickly ordered his cavalry to assemble to the east of the city. Here they rapidly traversed the ford at Rouvroy, scattering the “reiters", before the French cavalry who were meant to reinforce them could arrive. Having received the news, Montmorency ordered to abandon the transport operation and to have the infantry retreat, while the cavalry would screen them.
Montmorency joined his men and observed his enemies. The Spanish waited for all of their cavalry to have traversed the river and began to line up, threatening to encircle the French, who retreated. A few kilometers south of the river Montmorency and his men, outnumbered, were finally intercepted by the Dutch and German light cavalry. The general made the last charge and was captured, while many others scattered and were hunted down. After disposing of the cavalry, the Spanish arrived at the infantry columns and attacked them on the flanks.
The footmen broke down in smaller pike units that were harassed by the Spanish reiters and finally broken when cannons were brought up to their position. Many French tried to run but were butchered: The French army suffered between 12 and 18000 casualties, half of them captured, while the Spanish casualties were negligible. After the great victory, the Duke of Savoy wanted to head straight to Paris, but his king ordered instead to continue the siege. Gaspare de Coligny desperately held out for two more weeks, when the town was taken by assault on the 27th of August after a ferocious bombardment, and Coligny was captured, but his resistance took long enough for the campaign to run out of steam.
In September, to the surprise of everyone, Philip ordered his army to retreat and abandoned his advance on Paris. Duke of Guise, now back from Naples, spent the autumn raiding north of Champagne. This was a ploy to distract the Spanish from the real objective and in the winter of 1557-58 he attacked the Netherlands. In January he took Calais from the English after a short siege, reconquering the last English territory on the continent. In June he took Thionville from the Spanish. The French resurgence, however, ended at the town of Gravelines, where a French force under des Thermes was annihilated at the hands of the Spanish army in the Netherlands after a raiding operation. A large Imperial army advanced in July from the north and placed itself along the river Somme, opposite the French army, but neither side took any action for a few months.
End of the Italian Wars
Both sides were exhausted, and a truce was signed in October 1558, a month after Charles the Fifth had died in Extremadura, which had been an obstacle for peace. Peace was reached on the Third of April 1559 in the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis: Henry had to give up all of his possessions and claims in Italy, except for Saluzzo, and evacuate his troops in Italy and Luxembourg. Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy was reinstated to his Duchy with all of his lands, though he had to marry Henry's sister and some fortresses remained in French hands. In exchange, the French crown was allowed to keep Calais and the Three Bishoprics.
No mention was made of the many exiles from Naples, Milan, and Florence in the French court, who were not allowed to return to their homes. So ended the Italian wars, 65 years of nearly uninterrupted conflicts on the Italian peninsula that completely upset the political landscape of the region. France, whose king Henry would die in the summer in a tournament accident, would soon be engulfed in a brutal religious civil war, while Philip had more than enough work to do to keep his realm together.
