The Eighty Years War: From revolt to regular war (1568-1648)
The Eighty Years War. From revolt to regular war (1568-1648). Translated by Andy Brown, Helen Bannatyne & Annette Mills. 2019.
Weapons carried by rank and file of eleven Holland and nine English infantry companies mustered in Holland between 1573 and 1578.
The inability of governments to control mercenary armies was the major military problem of the sixteenth century. Philip II and the insurgents waged war with troops who bore them little loyalty. Soldiers were free to offer their services to anyone they chose. A military commander and/or contractor - a captain or a colonel - might choose the side of the insurgents or the sovereign lord on the basis of his own religious convictions or origin, but for the majority of the ordinary troops these factors played no part in their choice of paymaster. As the use of ‘free soldiers’ entailed many disadvantages, paymasters made every effort to restrict the independence of the troops and subject them to their authority. The rebellious Dutch provinces played a prominent role in this development, as it was more urgent for them to keep their headstrong mercenaries in check than for Philip II. Mutinies and sacks posed no immediate threat to the survival of the mighty Habsburg realms but for smaller political entities it was a different matter. The insurgents tried to keep mercenaries under control by breaking up their organisational structure. That came at a high price, however, as dismantling the regimental framework - the basis of the landsknecht system to be discussed here - had serious negative consequences for the infantry’s esprit de corps and therefore its fighting power. Besides their inadequate weaponry, this was one of the main reasons why the insurgents could achieve no success against the King’s army, under the leadership of Alva or Parma, in pitched battles outside Holland and Zeeland. In the long term, however, these organisational changes gave Maurits and Willem Lodewijk the opportunity to introduce disciplinary measures and tactical reforms in the States General’s army.
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For powerful rulers like Philip II mutinies posed no threat. They waited for the dust to settle and then reached an agreement with the mutineers or had other troops call them to order. But it was different for princes with a small territorial base. William of Orange found himself in serious trouble in 1568, when he could not pay his troops. He could not simply abandon them to their fate, as that would jeopardise his reputation as a military contractor and run the risk that his unpaid troops would sack his ancestral homeland of Nassau.
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In the early years of the Revolt, the soldiers serving under Holland captains came from a variety of provinces and regions. On the basis of the muster rolls for the period from 1572 to 1577, military historian Jan Willem Wijn was able to identify the birthplaces of almost 4,900 men: 1,690 (35%) were from Holland itself, 850 (17%) from Friesland, 1,560 (32%) from the rest of the Low Countries, 700 (14%) from the German states, 50 (1%) from England and 15 (0.3%) from Scandinavia. The soldiers’ origins reflect the weaponry of the companies in those years. It is not surprising that there were so few Germans: they were mainly pikemen, while 75 to 80% of the troops in these companies were musketeers or calivermen, firearms being especially popular among soldiers from the Low Countries.
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In the 1570s most soldiers in the service of the Revolt fought using firearms. This was understandable, given the fact that the terrain in Holland and Zeeland was unsuitable for the deployment of pikemen and large numbers of cavalry. Under the cover provided by hedges, bushes, dykes and ditches, the insurgents could fire at enemy troops in relative safety. But this type of guerrilla warfare was not always an option. The only way to relieve Haarlem when it was under siege, for example, was a direct confrontation with the royal army. In December 1572 Lumey, William of Orange’s deputy stadholder in southern Holland, assembled as many pikemen as possible and formed a troop of 2,500 men. This solution was far from ideal. The pikemen he had mustered were unused to fighting together and so could not operate as a tightly-knit unit. The consequences became clear on 13 December 1572 during the first battle at Manpad, when panic quickly broke out among the insurgent forces. When the Spanish troops saw the pikes wavering to and fro, they made a concerted attack and dispersed the insurgents’ army. And when Lodewijk van Nassau invaded the Low Countries in 1574 he had too few pikemen, a major cause of his defeat at Mook on 14 April 1574.
Дополнительно - Erik Swart. From ‘‘Landsknecht’’ to ‘‘Soldier’’: The Low German Foot Soldiers of the Low Countries in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century // International Review of Social History Vol. 51, No. 1 (april 2006) и Wijn J.W. Het krijgswezen in den tijd van prins Maurits. Utrecht. 1934.
Bij de Spanjaarden waren volgens Valdez, zeker een betrouwbaar getuige, veel meer schutters dan pieken. Hij had zelfs bijgewoond, dat bij een leger van 9000 man er nauwelijks 1500 pieken waren. Bij de vendels Spanjaarden, die Alva in 1568 bij Maastricht bezat, samen 4-5000 man sterk, waren, insgelijks volgens Valdez, 1200 piekeniers. Bij den tocht van d'Avila naar Middelburg in 1572 waren onder de 560 Spanjaarden slechts 100 pieken en hellebaarden; bij dien van Zapata in het zelfde jaar van Rotterdam naar Amsterdam niet meer dan 60 van de 300.
P.S.
- Maurizio Arfaioli. The road to Naples: Florence, the Black Bands and the army of the League of Cognac (1526-1528). 2001
- Maurizio Arfaioli. The Black Bands of Giovanni: Infantry and Diplomacy During the Italian Wars (1526-1528). 2005
- James B. Wood. The King's Army. Warfare, Soldiers and Society During the Wars of Religion in France, 1562-76. 1996
