Funny Stuff is all around

Medieval Intrigue

If a foreign prince asked for Swiss mercenaries, and the request was granted by the diet of the League, the diet fixed the contingent of each canton ; the cantonal governments settled how many men should be furnished by each commune, and the men were chosen by the municipal officers or the captains. There were always more men willing to go than were needed. When the whole force came together it chose its leaders. The price of mercenaries was about four florins a month. Payment was made to the diet, which divided the sum received among the cantons.”

On the site : bog about infantry, reference has already been made to the fight of St. Jacob (1444) between the French and the Swiss. ” Noblemen who had been present in many engagements with the English and others have assured me,” says a French writer (quoted by Michelet), “that they never saw or met with men who defended themselves so stoutly, or exposed their lives so daringly and rashly.” Louis saw that it was better to have such men as allies than as enemies. He contrived to bring them into the field against his rival, Charles of Burgundy (known as Charles the Bold in his earlier years, but latterly as Charles the Rash); and he afterwards hired 6000 of them himself, setting an example which his successors followed for three centuries.

Charles, though a bad general, was an indefatigable soldier and a painstaking organiser. Dissatisfied with the feudal militia, he set to work in 1471 to form a standing army like that which had been initiated by Charles VII. in France. This rose to the number of 2200 ” lances,” each consisting of eight men, viz. a man-at-arms, a coutillier, three mounted archers, and three men on foot, armed with pike, crossbow or culverin. They were divided into companies of 100 lances. The mounted men and the infantry formed separate companies, but acted together, the pikes being drawn up in line or square in front of the archers, and reinforced by dismounted men-at-arms. In addition to these 18,000 regulars who were mostly recruited from abroad, he had more than 2000 English archers, and other mercenaries, and a large train of artillery. The wealthy cities of the Low Countries groaned under his exactions for the maintenance of troops which failed him when they were put to the test.

The aggressions of Charles had raised enemies on all sides, and among these was Berne, which dragged the rest of the cantons along with it. While the duke was besieging Neuss, in 1474, the Swiss helped to defeat his lieutenant in Franche Comte ; and in the following year, while he was annexing Lorraine, they attacked his ally, the Duchess of Savoy. At the beginning of 1476 he crossed the Juras with 25,000 men, declaring that he would teach those peasants what war was like. He took Granson, on the lake of Neuchatel, hanged the garrison, and then marched along the lake to meet the army of the Confederates, which was coming up to save the town. It numbered about 16,000 foot and 500 horse. The Burgundian cavalry charged the Swiss vanguard, but it was reinforced and stood its ground. There was no room for cavalry to manoeuvre between the hills and the lake, and they masked the fire of the guns, so Charles told them to fall back to more open country. As soon as the two wings of cavalry were seen to be wheeling off to the rear, the infantry drawn up behind them took it as a signal for retreat, and made off with all haste, leaving the guns on the field. Charles tried to rally them in vain, and the cavalry soon followed them. It was a victory won, not by hard fighting, but by the prestige of the Swiss and the bad handling of the Burgundians. The Swiss were apt ” to strike their enemies with terror at their mere approach,” as the people of Strassburg had said when they asked Berne to send them 400 men a few months before.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Related posts

• No related posts.