Battle of Marignano
![]() | This article includes a list of generalreferences,butit lacks sufficient correspondinginline citations.(October 2015) |
Battle of Marignano | |||||||||
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Part of theWar of the League of Cambrai | |||||||||
![]() Francis I Orders His Troops to Stop Pursuing the Swiss,a Romantic 19th century work byAlexandre-Évariste Fragonard(Galerie des Batailles,Palace of Versailles) | |||||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
Francis I Gian Giacomo Trivulzio Bartolomeo d'Alviano Louis de la Trémoille Charles III, Duke of Bourbon |
Marx Röist Maximilian Sforza[1] Cardinal Mattheus Schiner | ||||||||
Strength | |||||||||
22,200 men
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Casualties and losses | |||||||||
5,000 dead[4] Unknown wounded |
10,000 dead[5] Unknown wounded |
TheBattle of Marignanowas the last major engagement of theWar of the League of Cambraiand took place on 13–14 September 1515, near the town now calledMelegnano,16 km southeast ofMilan.It pitted the French army, composed of the bestheavy cavalryand artillery in the world, led byFrancis I,newly crownedKing of France,against theOld Swiss Confederacy,whose mercenaries until that point were regarded as the best medieval infantry force in Europe. With the French were Germanlandsknechts,bitter rivals of the Swiss for fame and renown in war, and their late arrivingVenetianallies.
Background
[edit]The campaign of Marignano followed years of Swiss successes, during which French fortunes in northern Italy had suffered greatly. The Swiss had taken control of Milan (for France the gateway to Italy) after their victory at theBattle of Novara (1513),and returned to its ducal throneMassimiliano,son ofLudovico Sforza,to make Milan a protectorate of Switzerland.[6]
The prologue to the battle was an Alpine passage, in which Francis hauled pieces of artillery (72 huge cannons[7]) over new-made roads over theCol d'Argentière,a previously unknown route. AtVillafrancathe French, led byJacques de la Palice,[8]surprised and captured the Papal commander,Prospero Colonna,in a daring cavalry raid deep behind the allied lines (theChevalier Bayardproviding the impetus and expertise). Colonna and his staff aside, the French seized a great deal of booty on the raid, including 600 horses.
The capture of Colonna, along with the startling appearance of the French army on the plains ofPiedmont,stunned the allies. The Pope and the Swiss both sought terms with Francis, while the Spanish allies en route from Naples halted to await developments. The main Swiss army retreated to Milan, while a large faction, tired of the war and eager to return home with the booty of years of successful campaigning, urged terms with the French.
Though the parties reached a peace agreement that gave Milan back to the French, leading large portions of the Swiss army to return home, fresh troops also arrived from the Swiss cantons who refused to abide by the treaty. Discord swept through the Swiss forces untilMatthäus Schiner,cardinal of Sion and an arch-enemy of King Francis, tricked the Swiss into doing battle with a far superior force by exaggerating the extent of a minor skirmish.[9]: p. 52 The Swiss issued forth from Milan in disciplined columns.
Battle
[edit]![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/Marignano.jpg/220px-Marignano.jpg)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/Urs_Graf_Schrecken_des_Kriegs_1521.jpg/220px-Urs_Graf_Schrecken_des_Kriegs_1521.jpg)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/Rudolfus_%27Longus%27_%C3%A0_Salis_of_Soglio%2C_sometime_Governor_of_Pavia%2C_killed_at_Marignano_1515.jpg/220px-Rudolfus_%27Longus%27_%C3%A0_Salis_of_Soglio%2C_sometime_Governor_of_Pavia%2C_killed_at_Marignano_1515.jpg)
The Swiss encountered Francis's forces at the little burnt-out village of Marignano on a plain dotted with vineyards, farm fields, small orchards, and pastures. A treaty signed, the French were not expecting battle. Francis was in his tent, trying on a new suit of armor, when scouts reported the coming of the Swiss. The French army quickly sprang into action, forming up in three divisions. The French vanguard, under the joint command ofCharles III, Duke of Bourbonand the MarshalGian Giacomo Trivulzio,took possession of two shallow rises near San Giuliano. This formation consisted of crossbowmen (protected by earthworks andpaviseshields) on the left, a large square ofLandsknechtinfantry at the center, andarquebusierson the right, covering the artillery, which was arrayed in a crescent shape along the south-eastern and eastern edges of the formation. Two kilometers to their rear,Francis I of Francepersonally led a force of cavalry and 6,000 Landsknechts recruited from the Netherlands known as the Black Band of Gueldern.[10]Finally, the rearguard, a further kilometer to the center's rear, was led by the King's brother-in-law,Charles IV, Duke of Alençon.Unlike the French force, which had a good mix of pikemen, arquebuses, and cavalry, the Swiss force consisted almost entirely of pike infantry and only fielded less than a dozen artillery pieces.[11]
Close to sunset, the Swiss approached the French in three divisions of their own, each a dense mass of pikemen. They had no artillery or cavalry, and had learned in past actions that a rapid advance into the enemy would sweep all before them. At Marignano, the battle began with a “forlorn hope”detaching from the Swiss vanguard phalanx, and charging the grand battery in front of the King’s position in the center with lowered pikes. Their intent, justified by experience in other battles, was to quickly overrun the French cannon and then turn them upon their owners.[citation needed]
At first the Swiss attack succeeded in driving back the landsknecht defenders and capturing a few of the guns, the speed of the Swiss advance rendering their fire ineffective. But Bourbon’s cavalry from the French right counter-attacked their flank, driving the forlorn hope back to the shelter of the Swiss vanguard. The pursuing French horse were themselves forced to retreat back a full kilometer after taking heavy losses.[12]
Smoke and the coming of night obscured the battle; in the moonlight and confusion, the outcome hung in the balance. Furious French cavalry charges, often led by the king himself, with Bayard at his side, succeeded time and again in throwing back temporary Swiss gains. Many of the foremost French commanders were wounded or killed in the desperate night fighting, including the Prince of Tallemont, son ofLouis II de la Trémoille,who died with sixty-two wounds on his body. The Black Legion counter-attacked and threw back the Swiss, only to be repulsed in turn. Bayard had to cut his way through the Swiss phalanx to rescue the Duke of Lorraine, stranded in the dark amongst his enemies. In the darkest hours, the fighting stopped, and both armies extracted themselves and reorganized. During the night, some of the Swiss soldiers, and even entire units, slipped away from the battlefield rather than fight another day. Those that remained were determined and the battle commenced again the following morning.[12]
In the French center, the grand battery had been reassembled. Opposing them, the Swiss had reformed their largest phalanx. Encouraged by the evening before, the Swiss once again lowered pikes and charged the French guns. This time the grand battery was ready for them. Massed cannon fire tore bloody furrows deep in their ranks, slowing the advance. But the undaunted Swiss continually closed ranks and pushed forward. Again, the defending German landsknechts were driven back; but the massed fire of the guns at point blank range prevented the Swiss from pushing farther forward. Still another French cavalry charge, this time led by Bayard, forced the attacking Swiss to give ground.
Baffled by the artillery but as yet undaunted, the Swiss refocused their assault against Alençon’s left-wing division. After making some headway, this attack too was thrown back. In his report later to his mother, King Francis would boast that “thirty brave charges” were hurled by the French gendarmerie against the stubborn Swiss.
Only the mid-morning arrival of allied Venetian forces commanded by thecondottieroBartolomeo d'Alvianoturned the tide against the Swiss. Their attacks repulsed everywhere, their ranks in bloody shambles, they grudgingly gave ground and withdrew by forming a single gigantic open square, maintaining extraordinary discipline in their retreat.[9]: p. 54
The battle was a decisive victory for Francis. This could be considered the expected outcome, seeing as the Swiss were heavily outnumbered and outgunned. But the Swiss during the preceding decades had almost habitually emerged victorious from such disadvantageous situations, and the French victory by no means came easily, the battle hanging in the balance until the arrival of the Venetian reinforcements.
The immediate causes of the Swiss defeat were their failure to capture the enemy artillery during the early phase of the battle and the arrival of the Venetians. But also contributing to the Swiss defeat were their lack of discipline and their ineffective command structure. Earlier in the same year of 1515, theSwiss diethad granted to each captain the authority to decide whether their company would continue their campaign or retreat. This made it impossible for the Swiss forces to act as a unit. The system of command consisted two captains elected as commanders-in-chief, besides the captains of the individual companies, as well as one representative elected by the men-at-arms of each canton. These commanders would vote on the policy of the Swiss army. In practice, this system broke down as soon as it was put to the test: the captains decided to honour the agreement not to attack, while the representatives of the troops, especially those of Uri, Schwyz, and Glarus, decided to attack regardless, motivated by the prospect of rich spoils.
Results
[edit]![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/Marignan.jpg/220px-Marignan.jpg)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/Hodler_-_Sterbender_Krieger_-_1897-98.jpg/300px-Hodler_-_Sterbender_Krieger_-_1897-98.jpg)
French side
[edit]“I have vanquished those whom only Caesar vanquished” was printed on the medal King Francis ordered struck to commemorate the victory.[13]Considering the battle his most cherished triumph, Francis requested that he himself be knighted on the battlefield, in the ancient style, by the hand of none other than the Chevalier Bayard. MarshalGian Giacomo Trivulzio,veteran of every war for the previous 40 years, praised Marignano as the “battle of giants” and stated that compared to it, all previous battles in his lifetime had been “child’s sport”.
Marignano established the superiority of French castbronzeartilleryandgendarmecavalryover the heretofore invinciblephalanxtactics of the Swiss infantry. French success at Marignano, however, eventually galvanized opposition in the dividedpeninsulaand turned theEuropeanbalance of poweragainst Francis I. In the meantime, however, Francis gained the city, and more importantly, theCastello Sforzescowithin it, the strategic key to control ofLombardy.ThereMassimiliano Sforzaand his Swiss mercenaries and thecardinal-bishop of Sionretreated, only submitting when Frenchsappershad placed mines under the foundations. The French regained Milan, and Massimiliano went into luxurious exile with a French purse of 30,000 ducats.[14]
Swiss side
[edit]The retreating Swiss army retained control of their upper-Lombardy provinces ofBellinzonaandadjacent valleys,leaving a rearguard to preside over them.
The battle ended once and for all Swiss aspirations in Milan, and the Swiss Confederacy never again went to war against France or Milan. In fact, the Confederacy never went to war again at all after 1525, and (apart from the conquest ofVaudby thecanton of Bernacting on its own in 1536) there never was any Swiss military offensive against an external enemy again.Swiss historiography[citation needed]has tended to attribute this to the "lesson learned" at Marignano, but[citation needed]at least as effective was the division created by theSwiss Reformationin the 1520s, dividing the Confederacy into two factions which would be occupied with internal hostilities throughout the period of theEuropean Wars of Religion,as well as a number of painful defeats of Swiss mercenary regiments in the decade between 1515 and 1525 (atBicocca,Sesia andPavia).
Perpetual Peace
[edit]After lengthy negotiations, a peace treaty between theThirteen Cantonsand their allies (abbotandcityof St. Gallen,Three Leagues,Valais,Mulhouse) on one hand and Francis as both King of France and Duke of Milan on the other was signed inFribourgon 29 November 1516. In the treaty of Fribourg, known as "Perpetual Peace" (Ewiger Frieden,Paix perpétuelle), the Swiss Confederacy renounced all claims to the protectorate of Milan. In return, France paid 700,000gold crownsin compensation to the Confederacy. Both parties agreed to abstain from giving any support to enemies of the other party (with the exception of pre-existing treaties) and agreed on an arrangement of arbitration in the case of future disputes. France offered another 300,000 crowns if the Swiss were willing to yield theirtransmontane territories(except for Bellinzona), but this offer was declined. The treaty furthermore granted trade privileges to the Swiss, both in Milan and inLyon.[15]Only theOssolavalley was passed back to Milan, while the other transmontane bailiwicks of the Swiss Confederacy remain part of Switzerland to this day, since 1803 as thecanton Ticino(while the Three Leagues lost control of theValtellinain 1797).
The "Perpetual Peace" with France was indeed kept for the remainder of the lifetime of theKingdom of France,and was broken only during theFrench Revolutionary Wars,when the French Republicinvaded Switzerlandin 1798. It opened a period of close ties between the Swiss Confederacy with France over the nextthree centuries(while at the same time Switzerland moved away from its association with theHoly Roman Empire). A next step of rapprochement to France was the service pact (Soldbündnis) with France, concluded in 1521, which madeSwiss mercenaryregiments a regular part of the French armed forces (seeGardes Suisses). This arrangement also outlasted three centuries, with four Swiss regiments participating in Napoleon'sinvasion of Russiain 1812, foreign military service of Swiss citizens being finally outlawed in 1848 with the formation ofSwitzerland as a federal state.
Other
[edit]On 11 December 1515, Francis met withPope Leo XinBologna.[16]After several lengthy conversations, it was agreed that Francis would renounce thePragmatic Sanction of Bourges,and the pope would accept Francis' demands in the matter of the selection of French bishops.[16]The terms of a concordat between France and the Papacy were negotiated by plenipotentiaries over the following six weeks, granting the king of France, among other things, the right to nominate candidates for all vacancies in bishoprics or abbeys, subject to confirmation by the pope.[17]The Concordat was signed by Pope Leo X on 15 August 1516.[18]
Also at the meeting in Bologna wasLeonardo da Vinci,whom Francis persuaded to accompany him back to France, and granted him theClos Lucémanor and a pension of 7,000 scudi.[19]
Also present[citation needed]at the battle wasHuldrych Zwingli,who since 1506 had beenchurch patronatGlarus.In Glarus, there was political controversy on which side the young men seeking employment as mercenaries should take service, the side of France or that of the Holy Roman Empire and thePapal States. The aim was to prevent that men of Glarus took service on both sides ofthe war,which would result in the unhappy constellation of "brothers fighting brothers" on the battlefield, as had been the caseat Novarain 1500. Zwingli had supported the Pope before Marignano, and even after the battle, he opposed the peace with France and continued to support the side of the Papal States. Since public opinion in Glarus had shifted towards a clearly pro-French stance after the peace of 1516, Zwingli was forced to abandon his position in Glarus. He took employment atEinsiedeln,and from 1519 inZürich. Based on his experience in the Italian War, Zwingli became an outspoken opponent of mercenary service, arguing withErasmus of Rotterdamthat "war is sweet only to those who have not experienced it" (dulce bellum inexpertis). He also blamed the warmongery on the part ofcardinal Schinerfor the disaster at Marignano and began to preach against the "red caps" (rote hüetlin,i.e. the high clergy), the first signs of his radicalization that would culminate in theSwiss Reformationduring the decade following Marignano.
Legacy and commemoration
[edit]Commemorating the event are abas-reliefof the Battle of Marignano byPierre Bontemps,which decorates Francis I's tomb atSaint-Denis;a painting byAntoine CaronforFontainebleau(now at theNational Gallery of Canada,Ottawa); and the most famous musical composition ofClément Janequin,thechansonLa guerre.The Swiss heroHans Bärappears in a fresco on the tower of theBasel City Hall.The march Marignan (Marignano in the French language), composed in 1939 byJean Daetwyler,is the official orchestral hymn of the Swiss cantonValais.[20]
References
[edit]- ^Sforza was present at the battle, and, being the nominal employer of the Swiss, may be considered their leader. It is extremely doubtful, however, that he exercised any actual command.
- ^Tucker, Spencer C. (2009).A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East.Vol. II. Santa Bárbara: ABC-CLIO. p.484
- ^Nolan, Cathal J. (2006).The Age of Wars of Religion, 1000-1650: An Encyclopedia of Global Warfare and Civilization.p.575; Nolan, Cathal J. (2017).The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost.Oxford University Press.p.68
- ^Nolan (2006), p.575; Tucker (2009), p.484
- ^Nolan (2006): p.575
- ^Nelson Burnett, Amy (2016).A Companion to the Swiss Reformation.Brill. p. 43.
- ^Alfred S. Bradford (2014).War: Antiquity and Its Legacy Ancients and moderns series.I.B.Tauris. p. 61.ISBN9781848859357.
- ^Francesco Guicciardini,Storia d'Italia,Lib. XII, cap. 12
- ^abMcCormack, John (1993).One Million Mercenaries: Swiss Soldiers in the Armies of the World.L. Cooper.ISBN9780850523126.
- ^Dean, S. (2012). A blow to Swiss ambitions: The Battle of Marignano, 13–14 September 1515. Medieval Warfare, 2(5), 26-32. Retrieved August 28, 2021, fromhttps:// jstor.org/stable/48578039,pg. 28
- ^Dean, S. (2012), pg. 28
- ^abDean, S. (2012), pg. 29
- ^McPhee, John (1983-10-31)."La Place de la Concorde Suisse-I".The New Yorker.p. 50.Retrieved22 July2013.
- ^Canada's Digital Collections (collections.ic.gc.ca)ArchivedDecember 17, 2004, at theWayback Machine
- ^André Holenstein:Ewiger Frieden / Paix perpétuelleinGerman,FrenchandItalianin the onlineHistorical Dictionary of Switzerland,2010.
- ^abCostigan 1966,p. 89.
- ^Ludwig Pastor,The History of the Popes, from the close of the Middle Ages,Volume 8 (London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner 1908), pp. 414-417.
- ^Concordat entre Léon X, souverain pontife, et François 1er, roi de France,(in Latin and French),(Paris: P. Gueffier 1804), p. 128.
- ^Pooler 2020,p. 91.
- ^"Marignan devient l'hymne officiel valaisan".24heures.ch.27 April 2016.
Sources
[edit]- Costigan, Richard F. (1966). "State Appointment of Bishops".Journal of Church and State.8(1, Winter): 82–96.doi:10.1093/jcs/8.1.82.
- Pooler, Richard Shaw (2020).Leonardo Da Vinci's Treatise of Painting: The Story of The World's Greatest Treatise on Painting.Vernon Press.
- Hervé de Weck:Marignan, bataille deinGerman,FrenchandItalianin the onlineHistorical Dictionary of Switzerland,2015.
- Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 17 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 716–717. .
- W. McAllister Johnson,"The Monumental Style of Fontainebleau and its Consequences: Antoine Caron and 'The Submission of Milan'"from National Gallery of CanadaBulletin26 (1975)
External links
[edit]- Eric Niderost,"The Swiss defeat at the battle of Marignano: Ancient tactics tested" (niderost )2007
- War of the Holy League (zum.de)
- (in Italian)La Battaglia dei Giganti (tiscali.it/curiosandomax)
45°22′N9°19′E/ 45.367°N 9.317°E