system, we may quote the sweeping condemnation bestowed upon it by Machiavelli; yet it is right to remember that, as the advocate of infantry and national militia, he had no toleration for the military art which they superseded, and that he witnessed its practice only after its spirit was gone. "Whoever relies for power upon mercenaries will never be stable or secure; for they are disunited, ambitious, undisciplined, faithless: braggarts among friends, dastards before the foe; destitute of fear of God, or faith with man. To delay their assault is to postpone your own ruin; in peace, you are plundered by them, in war by the enemy. The reason of all this is, that they have no object, no inducement to keep the field beyond their pittance of pay, which is never such as to induce them to spend life and limb for you. They readily enough take service, so long as you don't go to war, but when that comes, they desert or fly. It were easy to establish all this, for the destruction of Italy has arisen from no other cause but that, for many years, she depended upon mercenary troops; who, indeed, occasionally did something, and wore a semblance of valour when pitted against each other, but, on the appearance of the stranger, showed in their true colours. Thus was Charles of France allowed to take possession of the Peninsula as easily as he would have chalked off his cantonments, and the result of all their prowess left the country overrun by him, ravaged by Louis, trampled on by Ferdinand, and insulted by the Swiss; in fine, by their means she was enslaved and disgraced."
These changes led to considerable modifications in the art of war, to which other circumstances greatly contributed. The invasion of Italy by successive ultra-montane hosts brought into her battle-fields other races, armed, drilled, and disciplined upon new principles; and the descent of Charles VIII., which we are now about to describe, forms an era in military tactics. The heavy accoutrements, the staid evolutions, the blockade sieges, the bloodless encounters of the old system were admirably suited for troops whose grand object was to perform their term of service without unnecessary personal risk, and to spare themselves all exertion which did not promise a meed of booty. The invention of gunpowder at first tended to exaggerate the very inconveniences which it was destined eventually to supplant: for a time, defensive armour became more and more massive, and horse-trappings less manageable. In order to resist the additional weight, chargers of the most powerful shapes were sought for; but they were in proportion sluggish and unhandy, apt to fall on the slightest stumble, difficult to maintain in condition, and incapable of sustained exertion. These evils having become apparent, the men-at-arms ceased to be regarded as the sole sinews of war, and many of them were converted into lances.
Unlike the cavalry which now bear that name, these lances were heavy troops, and, like the men-at-arms, they each consisted of three mounted soldiers—a head-lance on his charger, a soldier on his steed, and a lacquey on his pad. The pay of these troops, which in 1492 were already used in Romagna,*241 was twelve florins for every lance, being four times that of a foot-soldier; and they were reckoned twice as effective as balestrieri or light-horse, both new varieties of mounted force. The former were brought into repute by Camillo Vitelli,
"In heart a lion, though a calf in name,"242
and were armed with cross-bows, their tactics being to gall the enemy without coming to close quarters. Of the latter there were several varieties, the most efficient of which were the Stradiotes. Accustomed from childhood to constant skirmishes with their Turkish foes, in the mountains of Albania, where manœuvres of regular cavalry were impracticable, they partook of the agility and address for which Cossacks and Circassians have lately become celebrated. Their arms were a spear ten feet long, a broad-sword and a mace, and they were defended by an iron skull-cap, a small shield, and a short quilted jerkin. They were introduced by the Venetians into Lombardy, where their dashing qualities, as well as their ferocity, soon established the reputation of these irregular horse as most formidable mercenaries.
Infantry occupied, under the new system, a place until then denied them. They had hitherto been of small account in the mustering of armies, and were rarely relied on except in situations which excluded cavalry evolutions. They carried small shields, and halberts or lances, but were scarcely at all drilled, and never attempted to stand against a charge of horse. More effective were their cross-bows, and the rude muskets which they began to use. As fire-arms were made more handy, the value of infantry rapidly increased, and its discipline became an important branch of the military art. But in this section of the service, Italians had to learn costly lessons from their alpine neighbours.
In a land where nature had lavished her most sublime efforts, she reared a race as hardy in heart and sinew as their climate was severe, their scenery wild, their hardships extreme. Life was there a perpetual struggle with privations, an unceasing exercise of toil. To provide the necessaries of existence required limbs enduring of fatigue, an eye of unerring accuracy, perseverance inexhaustible, courage indomitable. And such were the qualities of the Swiss mountaineers, which they developed in the chase, exercised in rude sports, and perfected in their struggles with the house of Hapsburg, until their shouts of victory echoed through the valleys around Morgarten—until Europe stood aghast at the issue of Granson, and of
"Morat the proud, the patriot field."
In their country of crags and ravines it was impossible either to rear powerful horses, or to manœuvre with heavy cavalry; the accoutrements of gens d'armerie were also too costly for a population of scanty and much divided means. They therefore adopted, what proved more effective even in the plain, an infantry so armed and drilled as to withstand the shock of men-at-arms. In lines four deep, or in cross-shaped columns, they received the charge upon their bristling pikes, and with two-handed swords dealt fell blows on the broken squadrons. Their defensive armour was of the least cumbrous description, consisting generally but of breastplates; and with the axe-headed halberts, which some of them carried, they unseated their enemies, or cut their reins in the mêlée. By these means they were enabled so well to apply the activity and endurance bestowed upon them by nature, as to meet on equal terms with armies apparently much their superiors. Louis XI. was the first sovereign to avail himself of a new element, whose qualities he had learned by bloody experience at the passage of the Birsa, in 1444.243 But after the Swiss mercenaries had tasted the gratification of regular pay, and the plunder of lands more golden than their own, an appetite for adventure superseded the pristine simplicity of their habits. The cantons, finding it difficult to keep their youth at home, became parties to contracts which hired out their services to the best bidder; and we shall henceforth find them in the champagne lands of Lombardy, following with equal goodwill the lilies of France, the lion of St. Mark, or the Papal gonfalone. Thus in a few years, the military aspect of Southern Europe became changed, not only by the employment of Swiss infantry in all important enterprises, but from an adoption of their system by the troops of Italy, France, and Germany.
The Emperor Maximilian was the first to organise in Germany a militia of foot, under the name of lanznechts, against whom the Swiss, recollecting their ancient struggles for liberty, nourished a rancour, which only their common stipendiary interests could for the moment suspend. Lightly armed with lance and dagger, but encumbered by a preposterous camp-following; reckless of danger, yet indifferent to glory; they were fractious, disobedient, debauched, impatient of suffering, greedy of pay, devoted to plunder. But our notice of the ultra-montane infantry would be incomplete without the Spaniards. They were brought into Italy to maintain Ferdinand's pretensions upon Naples, and to support the aspirations of his successor to extended dominion in the Peninsula. Levied by tuck of drum, with scanty promise of pay, but unlimited licence to pillage, they campaigned in the spirit of pirates; and though the energy of Gonsalvo di Cordova ultimately brought the Hispano-Neapolitan army into a very efficient state, this stain was never effaced. The character for ferocity which attached to their birth is stamped upon their military exploits, and has left its traces to this day upon the inhabitants of Lower Italy. The cavalry of Germany and Spain was decidedly inferior to the Italian light horse and men-at-arms, and played but an unimportant part in the wars which we are now to consider.
Our review of the military art in the Peninsula must needs include the recent introduction of fire-arms. The researches of Gaye have discovered that projectiles were used in Italy considerably earlier than the date usually assigned to their invention, a due provision of "cannons and metal balls," both for field-service and fortification, being ordered by the Florentine government in February, 1326.244 Whatever may