Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/782

 746 ARMY mercenaries, was armed with pike and sword, breastplate and helmet. & fa^U**"* close masses, but, better armed and drilled than the feudal infantry, it showed greater tenacity and order in combat. The standing levies and the mercenaries, soldiers by profession, were of course superior to the casual levies and dis- connected bands of feudal retainers. The heavy cavalry now found it sometimes necessary to charge in close array against infantry. The lio-ht infantry was still principally composed of archers, but the use of the hand-gun for skir- mishers gained ground. The cavalry remained as yet the principal arm heavy cavalry, men- at-arms encased in iron, but no longer com- posed in every case of the nobility, and re- duced from its former chivalrous and Homeric mode of fighting to the more prosaic neces- sity of charging in close order. But the un- wieldiness of such cavalry was now generally felt, and many devices were planned to find a lighter kind of horse. Mounted archers, as has been stated, had in part to supply this want; in Italy and the neighboring countries the stradioti, light cavalry on the Turkish plan, composed of Bosnian and Albanian mer- cenaries, a sort of bashi-bazouks, found ready employment, and were much feared, especially in pursuits. Poland and Hungary had, besides the heavy cavalry adopted from the West, re- tained their own national light cavalry. The artillery was in its infancy. The heavy guns of the time were indeed taken into the field, but could not leave their position after it was once taken up ; the powder was bad, the load- ing difficult and slow, and the range of the stone balls short. The close of the 15th and the beginning of the Ifith century are marked by a double progress ; the French improved the artillery, and the Spaniards gave a new char- acter to the infantry. Charles VIII. of France made his guns so far movable that he could not only take them into the field, but make them change their position during battle and follow the other troops in their movements, which, however, were not very quick. He thereby became the founder of field artillery. His guns, mounted on wheeled carriages and plentifully horsed, proved immensely superior to the old-fashioned clumsy artillery of the Ital- ians drawn by bullocks, and did such execu- tion in the deep columns of the Italian infantry, that Machiavelli wrote his "Art ot"War" prin- cipally in order to propose formations by which the effect of such artillery on infantry could be counteracted. In the battle of Marignano, Francis I. of France defeated the Swiss pike- men by the effective fire and the mobility of this artillery, which, from flanking positions, enfiladed the Swiss order of battle. But the reign of the )rike, for infantry, was on the de- cline. The Spaniards improved the common hand-gun (arqihbiise) and introduced it into the regular heavy infantry. Their musket (hacquebutte) vas a heavy, long-barrelled arm, bored for two-ounce bullets, and fired from a rest formed by a forked pole. It sent its bullet through the strongest breastplate, and was therefore decisive against the heavy cavalry, which got into disorder as soon as the men be- gan falling. Ten or 15 musketeers were placed with every company of pikemen, and the effect of their fire at Pavia astonished both allies and enemies. Frundsberg relates that in that bat- tle a single shot from such a musket would bring down several men and horses. From that time dates the superiority of the Spanish infantry, which lasted for above 100 years. - The war consequent npon the rebellion of the Netherlands was of great influence on the for- mation of armies. Both Spaniards and Dutch improved all arms considerably. Hitherto, in the armies of mercenaries, every man offering for enlistment had to come fully equipped, armed, and acquainted with the use of his arms. But in this long war, carried on during 40 years on a small extent of country, the available recruits of this class soon became scarce. The Dutch had to put np with such able-bodied volunteers as they could get, and the government was now under the necessity of seeing them drilled. Maurice of Nassau composed the first drill regulations of modern times, and thereby laid the foundation for the uniform instruction of a whole army. The in- fantry began again to march in step ; it gained much in homogeneity and solidity. It was now formed into smaller bodies; the companies, hitherto 400 to 500, were reduced to 150 and 200 men, 10 companies forming a regiment. The improved musket gained ground upon the pike ; one third of the whole infantry consisted of musketeers, mixed in each company with the pikemen. These latter, being required for hand-to-hand fight only, retained their helmet, breastplate, and steel gauntlets ; the musketeers threw away all defensive armor. The forma- tion was generally two deep for the pikemen, and from five to eight deep for the musketeers ; as soon as the first rank had fired, it retired to load again. Still greater changes took place in cavalry, and here, too, Maurice of Nassau took the lead. In the impossibility of forming a heavy cavalry of men-at-arms, he organized a body of light horse recruited in Germany, armed them with a helmet, cuirass, brassarts for the arms, steel gauntlets, and long boots; and as with the lance they would not have been a match for the heavy-armed Spanish cavalry, he gave them a sword and long pistols. This new class of horsemen, approaching our mod- ern cuirassiers, soon proved superior to the far less numerous and less movable Spanish men-at- arms, whose horses they shot down before the slow mass broke in upon them. Maurice of Nassau had his cuirassiers drilled as well as his infantry ; he so far succeeded, that he could venture to execute in battle changes of front and other evolutions with large or small bodies of them. Alva, too, had found the necessity of improving his light horse; hitherto they had been fit for skirmishing and single combat