Battle of Ceriñola

The Battle of Ceriñola (April 28, 1503) was a war between French and Spanish troops, with victory for the latter, during the Second War of Naples, in what is today It is the city of Cerignola (province of Foggia, in Apulia), at that time a small town on a hill and protected by a moat and a slope built by the Spanish troops stationed there. Ceriñola marks the beginning of the hegemony that Spain imposed on the European battlefields until the defeats of Rocroi in 1643 and the defeat in the Battle of the Dunes (or Battle of Dunkirk), which occurred on June 14, 1658.

Background

After the unexpected breakup by the French of the Treaty of Granada, by which the Kingdom of Naples was divided between Spain and France, the Duke of Nemours, who won the siege of Canosa, forced the armies of the Great Captain to retreat and take refuge in the city of Barletta, in 1502. While waiting for reinforcements, the Spanish troops dedicated themselves to practicing night sorties and ambushes against the French, a tactic inherited from the War of Granada and which exasperated the Frenchmen who were not accustomed to that type of confrontation. During that wait, unique duels were organized between Spanish and French knights. The most famous took place on September 21, 1502, and eleven French knights fought against eleven Spaniards for more than 6 hours. The result was very favorable to the Spanish, resulting in one knight killed, another surrendered and 9 wounded on the French side, and one knight surrendered and two wounded on the Spanish side.

Finally, after the victory of Admiral Juan de Lezcano's Spanish squadron over Admiral Prijan's French squadron in the Battle of Otranto, the Grand Captain was able to reinforce himself with German landsknechts, with which he launched the offensive in the spring of 1503. To advance as quickly as possible, the Spanish general ordered that each knight carry an infantryman on the back of his horse, which, given the sense of honor of the time, caused a flurry of protests from the soldiers. The Great Captain immediately silenced the complaints by setting an example himself. Thanks to this action, unprecedented for that time, the Spanish army managed to reach the small town of Ceriñola with enough time to carefully prepare the defense against the imminent French attack. The Spanish general quickly ordered a pit to be dug and with the extracted earth to build a parapet on which sharp stakes were secured. When the Duke of Nemours' troops finally approached Ceriñola, the Grand Captain had already prepared the defense and defined a strategy.

On April 28, 1503 the battle took place. As mentioned above, the French, mainly heavy cavalry and Swiss pikemen, were commanded by Louis de Armagnac, Count of Guise, Duke of Nemours and viceroy of Naples (since 1501), and the Spanish by Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, called the Great Captain..

Spanish Army

The Spanish forces were made up mainly of infantry, made up of harquebusiers, crossbowmen, corselets, and pikemen. As for the cavalry, it was strikingly scarce compared to other armies, and was made up of light cavalry and heavy cavalry. The artillery available consisted of about 13 pieces arranged on a small hill that rose behind the moat and the slope (in turn formed by the earth extracted when digging the moat) that protected Ceriñola.

The harquebusiers, in the first line, were arranged in two groups of about 500 men each behind the slope that followed the excavated ditch and in several trenches located in front of the ditch. Behind them, and in the center, about 2,500 German pikemen were grouped. On both sides of the pikemen there were groups of about 2,000 bodyguards and crossbowmen each. Behind the armor and towards the flanks, the two groups of about 400 heavy cavalry men, commanded by Próspero Colonna and Pedro de Mendoza, were placed.

Finally, on the hill where the artillery was located, a group of 850 light cavalry men was placed, led by Fabrizio Colonna and Pedro de Pax, both under the immediate command of the Great Captain, who had a command from there. Complete view of the battlefield. The mission of the light cavalry was to prevent the French troops from overwhelming the Spanish infantry in case they managed to break the defenses and cross the slope.

Therefore, although Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba was facing superior forces, he had achieved many strategic advantages thanks to his careful preparation of the battle, since he had occupied the heights of Ceriñola, and entrenched his soldiers with palisades, ditches and stakes.. Furthermore, his artillery was also better placed than the French.

French Army

The French forces continued to maintain an almost feudal concept of battle, with a preponderance of heavy cavalry charges, and with a high number of mercenaries (in this case Swiss), but, at the same time, they had more artillery than the Spanish people. This paradox would be constant in the first half of the XVI century in all French armies.

In the case of Ceriñola, the French troops, commanded by the Duke of Nemours, were grouped into four large blocks. In the vanguard was the heavy cavalry, separated into two groups of about 1,000 cavalry each. In it, in immediate command, was the Duke of Nemours himself. Behind them stood 3,000 Swiss mercenary pikemen, commanded by Chadieu. Immediately afterwards, in another large group of 3000 men, the Gascon infantry was placed. The 26 pieces of artillery they had were placed in front of the infantry. Finally, the light cavalry, commanded by Yves d'Allegre, waited behind them all, facing the left flank in the direction of the troops' advance.

The battle

The Grand Captain, aware of the enthusiasm of the French for cavalry charges, devised a stratagem that consisted of provoking a charge and attracting the French cavalry within the range of the artillery and the Spanish harquebusiers, to inflict from the first moment the greatest possible damage to the enemy with the minimum cost. In this way, when the afternoon began to fall, the Spanish cavalry took to the open field and simulated a charge against the French.

After a brief skirmish, the Spanish feigned retreat, pursued by the French heavy cavalry, which before reaching the ditch and slope, unexpectedly encountered the vanguard trenches in which part of the harquebusiers were crouching, They immediately opened fire, as did the artillery. This caused a momentary retreat of the French cavalry, which then launched itself parallel to the slope and to the left, trying to find a way to enter the parapets of the Spanish right flank. During this route, the French cavalry was destroyed by the fire of the Spanish harquebusiers, and the French general himself, the Duke of Nemours, died at that moment, who was hit by three shots.

The entire French army then launched into battle, placing its artillery in the vanguard of the infantry, and arranging the three remaining large blocks in a diagonal position with respect to the ditch and the slope that protected the Spanish troops.

In the middle of the battle, the Spanish artillery was disabled when all the gunpowder accidentally exploded. However, the Great Captain, witness to the disaster of his artillery, immediately harangued his troops saying: “Courage up! These are the luminaries of victory! "In a fortified field we don't need cannons!"

The French infantry then engaged in combat with the Spanish troops, but they were decimated by the incessant fire of the harquebusiers. The leader of the Swiss pikemen, Chadieu, also fell dead. When the proximity of the French infantry was too dangerous for the harquebusiers, the Spanish general ordered them to withdraw while ordering the German pikemen to advance, who engaged the Swiss and Gascons in close combat, finally repelling them. Finally, and in the face of the French disaster, the Grand Captain ordered all of his troops to abandon defensive positions and launch an attack.

The French infantry was then surrounded by crossbowmen, foot and horse harquebusiers, corselets and by the Spanish heavy cavalry itself, suffering a large number of casualties. The Spanish light cavalry in turn launched against the French light cavalry, under the command of Yves d'Allegre, who was forced to flee. Faced with this circumstance, the Spanish light cavalry also charged against the French infantry, from which only the Swiss managed to retreat in a disciplined manner. Even so, the French troops, faced with the tremendous punishment they were suffering, ended up surrendering.

During the battle, the Spanish harquebusiers fired a total of about 4,000 shots, most of them accurate.

Consequences

The French defeat at Ceriñola, together with the battle of Seminara that occurred the previous week, in which the Spanish troops of Fernando de Andrade and Hugo de Cardona defeated the French Army of D'Aubigny in Calabria, marked a turning point to the situation of the war in Naples: from this moment it would be the Spanish forces who would take the initiative in the course of the war, pushing the French back towards the north.

From a military point of view it represented a revolution in battle tactics, and would lay some of the foundations of modern warfare. For the first time in history, infantry equipped with harquebuses managed to defeat cavalry in the open field. The Spanish general applied a system of containment-counterattack, based on the use of firearms with the purpose of fixing and disrupting the French cavalry charge, also adding a correct choice of the occasion and the terrain (including its preparation) where present battle. Furthermore, the Great Captain demonstrated once again that an army formed by smaller and independent units provided a mobility that represented a decisive advantage in battle with respect to armies grouped in larger blocks, such as the one commanded on that occasion by the Duke of Nemours. Although until then the Spanish armies, like those of other European powers, were based on the massive use of cavalry, a legacy of the Reconquista wars, this new infantry was structured in units created by the Great Captain and called colonelies, which, once their great effectiveness in battle was proven, would be the seed of the famous Spanish thirds during the following decades.

Ceriñola marks the beginning of the era of the infantry, which would remain the predominant force in any army in Europe for more than four centuries, until well into the First World War.