Gustavus Adolphus; a history of the art of war from its revival after the middle ages to the end of the Spanish succession war, with a detailed account of the campaigns of the great Swede, and of the most famous campaign of Turenne, Condé, Eugene and Marlborough. With 237 charts, maps, plans of battles and tactical manoeuvres, cuts of uniforms, arms, and weapons

Front matter

Class

Book __

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT s

Preface

That the immense gap of sixteen and a half centuries which intervenes between the last campaign of Julius Caesar and the first campaign of Gustavus Adolphus is left almost untouched, must be justified by once more reminding the reader that the author has made no attempt to cover the history of war, but seeks only to indicate the origin and growth of what to-day we call the art of war. No preface, however long, can explain the purpose of the volumes of which the present is one, so well as the few words of Napoleon which have been chosen as a motto, and which follow the dedicatory page. " Read, reread the history of their eighty-eight campaigns," says this last of the Great Captains. A history of the origin and growth of the art of war is in reality only the story of the campaigns of those leaders whose deeds have created the art. The history of war is beyond limit ; to treat it in equal detail would call for hundreds of volumes, and the author has contemplated no such work.

A distinguished professor of history1 recently wrote the author : " You will have an embarrassing wealth of material in the military changes from Csesar to Gustavus Adolphus. As I run over the time, I see how you can use your narrative skill on the slaughter of the legions of Varus in the Teutowald ; the hurried marches of Aurelian while his soldiers sung that wild song of slaughter given by Flavius Vopiscus ; the Goths of Alaric and the Huns of Attila. and the struggle 1 Samuel Willard, LL. D.

viii PREFACE.

of armed mobs at Chalons ; the skillful work of Belisarius ; the saving of Europe by Leo the Isaurian, to whose work the picturesque battle of Tours was but a supplement ; the campaigns of Charlemagne, earliest in modern times to march converging columns upon an enemy ; knights and crusaders, and that greatest of all cavalry battles, greatest that ever was or ever will be, Dorylseum ; the Normans at Hastings ; the Swiss piling up the rampart of ten thousand dead at St. Jacobs ; the vain charge of Talbot, representative of the outgoing chivalry, against cannon and earthworks at Chatillon ; these, and two score more of the illustrations of the change from the old to the new, — how can you leave them out — how can you put them in? " And just because none of these acts in the drama of history had any influence on the art of war, it is not within the scope of this work to narrate them. Many of the deeds of the Great Captains, indeed, had no such influence ; but though these may none the less have found a place in their general military history, there is nothing to warrant the author in going outside of the Great Captains to dilate upon mere acts of heroism or mere scenes of carnage.

Hence, though the period between Munda in 45 B. C. and the Danish campaign of 1611 is dismissed with a mere summary, the author does not believe that he has left any gap unfilled in the actual history of the art of war ; and as its revival began with Gustavus Adolphus and was carried forward more or less expertly by his successors, it will be found that from the beginning of the seventeenth century down to 1815, the narrative in this and future volumes will cover most of the important wars.

Every nation, in gazing at the glories which surround its victories and its heroes, is apt to lose sight of the comparative standing of the latter. To the Prussian, Frederick the Only stands out unequaled ; to the Scandinavian, Gustavus ; to the

PREFACE. ix

Frenchman, Napoleon ; to the Austrian, Prince Eugene or the Archduke Charles ; to the Englishman, Marlborough or Wellington. It is only when each of these generals is grouped with the others on the theatre of war where he played his part, that one can properly gauge his place among the captains. To some of us Anglo-Saxons it may seem heresy to assume that Prince Eugene was equal as a general to the Duke of Marlborough. And yet, such was the case. Alone, he conducted more successful campaigns, he won more victories and he did more first-rate work than Marlborough ; while at Blenheim, Oudenarde and Malplaquet, he bore half the burden and won half the renown. When the facts are looked at dispassionately, the place assigned to each of the great generals in these volumes will, it is believed, be borne out by the mature judgment of any military student not suffering from patriotic astigmatism.

It is comparatively easy to write up a campaign without a map. This tell-tale absent, errors can be more easily covered ; a general allegation will suffice for a more specific one. But the author has striven to so illustrate his work with charts as that every statement may be readily checked off by reference to the terrain. The ancient maps of the country and of battle-fields, while full of information and suggestiveness, are apt to be topographically wrong and hence misleading ; it is hoped the maps and charts in this volume will prove more acceptable. The same care has been expended on them by personal visits to the battle-fields as was given to former volumes ; but they are intended rather to illustrate the text and to aid in comprehending the campaigns than as samples of the geographer's art. The amount of ground to be covered has resulted in their being made on a smaller scale than heretofore.

Little space could be spared for the exploits of individual x PREFACE.

generals or divisions ; the battle descriptions have been confined to what was strictly essential to a clear understanding of the manoeuvres. Particular heroism has been rarely mentioned ; except in the case of the leading generals, it does not fit into the scheme of the work.

Dates in the old records are inaccurate and puzzling ; but the New Style (ten days later than the Old Style) has been followed, — it is hoped without many errors. The political history of the times has been only incidentally mentioned ; the author can scarcely vouch for its being free from error, — he pretends to no knowledge of the intricate state imbroglios of the sixteenth century.

The authorities to which this volume is indebted are very numerous. Having no knowledge of Swedish, the author has been obliged to rely upon German, French or Italian translations of the home records ; but such eminent men as Droysen have carefully covered this ground ; and most of the better class of historical works, such as Geijer's Sveriges Historia, or Gustavus' Letters, exist in German. Moreover, the campaigns which made Gustavus forever great were rather a part of the history of Germany than of Sweden.

The following works, among others, have been laid under contribution, some of them very freely: Arkenholtz, Beaurain, Biilow, Chemnitz, Coxe, Desormeaux, Droysen, Duvivier, Dudik, Feuquieres, Forster, Gallitzin, Gfrorer, Grimoard, Gualdo Priorato, Harte, Hurter, Julius, Kausler, Keym, Khevenhuller, Lediard, Lossau, Mauvillon, Oman, Puffendorf, Quincy, Ramsay, Ranke, Swedish Intelligencer, Soden, Le Soldat Suedois, Sporschill, Theatrum Europaeum, Villermont, Voltaire, Zaber, Zanthier, a great number of memoirs, dispatches and letters of many of the generals, and old Netherland, Niirnberg and other German records. The author has drawn from too many eminent historians and critics

PREFACE. xi

to do less than acknowledge gratefully his indebtedness to each and all. But he has uniformly got his best suggestions from visits to the battle-fields, which, however changed in minor details, still remain substantially as they were.

The volume perhaps errs in being bulky ; but the reader can readily understand that it would have been easier to write thrice the number of pages than to condense so vast a subject into what may be placed between two covers. It is a far more satisfactory task to go into the minute details of a single campaign than to deal superficially with the manoeuvres of many; but though the scheme of this work necessitates in places severe condensation, the author trusts that no important matter distinctly contributory to the art of war has been slighted.

Table Of Contents

CHAPTER

PAGE

I. The Era of Cavalry. 378-1315 .... 1 II. Reappearance of Infantry. 1315-1500 . . 10

I. The Era Of Cavalry. 378-1315

As the ranks became filled with mercenaries, the Roman legion fell from its high estate. Hand to hand tactics gave way to missile weapons, the bow came into fashion, and ballistic machines and portable stakes appeared in fine of battle. The barbarians grew in efficiency beyond the legionaries, and to protect the vast frontier of the empire, cavalry came to be essential. Adrianople proved that horse could ride down foot, and mounted service became the more honorable. German cavalry, enlisted by the emperors, proved its preeminence, and the footman sank into insignificance. While the western nations relied on hard knocks, the Byzantines kept up a species of military art, — one of form and stratagem, rather than pure tactics or strategy, in which valor was prized, but discretion ranked higher. The Teutonic races depended on stout infantry : in their great raids there was little horse. Feudalism introduced the mailed knight, who for centuries reigned supreme. Useful in holding back the Moor, the Viking and the Magyar, he was not a soldier in the best sense ; his instability equaled his courage. He knew but one tactics, — to charge straight at the enemy, — and he was frequently routed by bad ground. Armies were set up in deep squares, and accident often decided the day. Armored mercenaries succeeded the knights, but were no better. Feudalism called for castles ; castles led to a war of sieges. Of strategy and tactics there was none. The Crusades were full of prowess ; they gave us no military lessons, except that of blind devotion.

The feature characterizing the history of the art of war, from the fall of the Roman empire to the era of the Reformation, is the rise of cavalry as the main reliance of nations, and the corresponding decadence of infantry. This condition lasted for many centuries, until the English long-bow and the

2 THE LEGION DEGENERATES.

Swiss pike and halberd, coupled to the growth of firearms, again reduced the horseman to his true level. Cavalry is an essential arm ; even the rapid-firing weapon of to-day cannot quite displace it ; but it is neither fitted to stand alone, nor to dominate infantry. Only when the footman is the main reliance of the commander can the art of war reach its highest development.

We have seen how the Roman legion, which was at its zenith when the burgess-soldier's stanch courage put a term to Hannibal's splendid bid for the conquest of Italy, degenerated by easy and natural gradations until it became a merely mercenary body, unable to cope with the barbarian invaders of the peninsula. In proportion as it forfeited character it became burdened with ballistic machines, it grew unwieldy, and lost so much of its marching speed that, to have at hand forces which could effectually be transferred from one threatened point on the enormous imperial frontier to another, the Emperor Constantine began to increase the cavalry by taking from each legion its auxiliary turmae, and collecting these into large bodies destined to serve alone.

The enemies of Rome, moreover, were no longer the ill-armed savages of yore. Their weapons and accoutrements had been vastly improved by contact with the empire, and the legion could not slash its way through a body of mere human brawn, — still less so with its own diminished stanchness. That the old Roman quality had perished was abundantly proven by the numerous ballistic machines, and by the beams and stakes carried along on pack-mules, not for the ancient purpose of intrenching the nightly camp, but to save the legion from cavalry attacks on the field of battle. These supplementary engines and tools meant that the legion had been reduced to an un-Roman defensive.

In the battle of Adrianople (a. d. 378), the Gothic squad-

CAVALRY DESTROYS AN ARMY. 3

rons accomplished what cavalry had never compassed since Hannibal's Numidians waded in the gore of Cannae, — they destroyed a Roinan army. This battle was the capstone to the belief that it was more honorable to fight on horseback than on foot, for the Goth had found that, unassisted, he could ride down the vaunted Roman legionary. While this was due more to the deterioration of the foot than to the melioration of the horse, yet while the latter continued to gain, the former continued to lose. For a thousand years to come cavalry was uppermost. It naturally deemed itself the superior of foot, as indeed it became and remained, — until the long-bow of the hardy British yeoman mowed down the supercilious French chivalry at Crecy.

Adrianople made it evident that the legions alone could no longer uphold the Roman supremacy.

With this lesson in mind, Theodosius began to enlist bands of Teutonic chiefs, and from now on the Roman soldier quite lost caste, and the barbarian horseman became the pillar of the empire. Indeed, he proved his right to the title by riding down the veteran Gallic legions which had risen under Magnus Maximus, and by more than one other noteworthy deed of prowess.

Another change soon became apparent. The Roman footman, already used to the support of ballistic machines and portable stakes in the line of battle, began to rely more and more on missile weapons, and to discard the arms of close quarters. The bow for the first time became a Roman weapon. Not but what the bow is an admirable arm, especially against cavalry ; it has asserted itself at intervals from remotest ages ; but it was a new thing to see the Roman legionary take kindly to long-distance weapons, and a thing to excite one's pity.

Cavalry reigned supreme. At a later day the Gothic horse-

4 BYZANTINE ART.

man rode to and fro throughout Italy, and still further proved that infantry, such as the Roman legion had then become, was no match for the best of mounted troops. All Europe soon vied in arming and training cavalry, and infantry sank to a still lower level. It was fit only for garrison duty, — to defend walls. The Roman cavalry ended by adopting the bow, and became the same body which had annihilated Crassus on the plains of Mesopotamia. Horse-archers and horse-lancers were the choice of the day. The latter, the heavy squadrons, were more unwieldy, but they were able at least to ride down the Oriental horse-archer.

It was thus arose all over Europe the idea that cavalry should be the chief and only arm ; the idea that mounted service alone was honorable ; the idea that the footman was a sloven and a coward.

The Byzantines were, in matters military, the legitimate successors of the old Roman empire. Their armies for centuries held back the barbarian inroads from the east ; they were, during their life, the best of their kind. They have been much disparaged by historians, and in a sense it is true that the Byzantines were not successful ; but for all that, they had an art in their wars, while in the west of Europe thews and sinews won the day. And while the doughty blows of the Frank appeal to our Saxon instinct of manliness rather than the ambush, stratagem and studied method of the Byzantme, yet the latter showed more intelligence in what he did and in the way he did it. Several books of tactics remain to us from this era, and the means of successfully combating the various races that might be met — Frank, Magyar or Saracen — were assiduously discussed. Moreover the eastern emperors did succeed in holding their territory against western assaults for generations.

The strength of the Byzantines lay in their heavy cavalry,

THE PERIOD OF CHAOS. 5

and this they set up in two lines and a reserve, whose three successive shocks told well. Courage was valued highly, but discretion and a knowledge of how to utilize varying conditions were deemed a better quality. Bull-headed pluck was not so highly considered as it was in the west ; stratagem showed a higher kind of soldierly ability, — even treachery held its place in the Byzantine scheme. A similar tendency was shown in the seventeenth century in the preference of manoeuvres over battles ; and was not Hannibal called perfidious because he resorted to ruse in his unequal struggle against ponderous Rome ? Despite these facts, which sound worse in the telling than they actually were, the Byzantines, so far as an art in war is concerned, were a half dozen centuries ahead of any nation in the west.

From the era of the Byzantine empire onward for many centuries it is impossible to speak with much accuracy about war or the art of war. History there is none ; chronicles mislead. Of war there was much ; of art in war there was little — as we understand it, none — until Gustavus Adolphus again infused method into what others had done with no method at all. Strategy had rarely shown itself since the days of Caesar ; tactics was whatever suited each nation or tribe, and never rose to the rank of grand-tactics. If a commander was able enough to pattern his battle-tactics to the ground on which he fought and to the work he had to do, he was deemed a marvel of originality and skill.

All nations did not go to war mounted. It was Gothic infantry, not horse, which marched down the Italian peninsula under Totila ; but it was the cavalry of Belisarius and of Narses which proved fatal to them ; and for three centuries the Franks kept increasing their proportion of mounted men. The bulk of the Teutonic forces remained foot ; and while Charles Martel and Charles the Great had a goodly array of

THE FEUDAL KNIGHT.

cavalry, their armies were really infantry, supplemented to a moderate extent by horse.

When the kingdom of Charles the Great was broken up and the local counts began to acquire a semi-independence, feudalism arose, and horsemen acquired still greater importance. They had their merits. It was they who kept back the vast inroads of that era from north, east and south. Without them Christendom might have been overrun; no wonder the knight in armor won the regard of the whole earth. In England the superiority of the horseman was not demonstrated until the battle of Hastings, when William's horse,

backed by his archers, did their share in overthrowing Harold's brave but reckless axemen ; but the superiority of the knight in armor was as marked during the feudal period in Britain as it was on the continent.

From the establishment of feudalism until the Swiss at Morgarten and the English at Crecy proved the ability of good foot to withstand the best of cavalry, the horseman was preeminent. He was not a good soldier ; he had no idea of discipline ; courage, a certain ability to use his cumbrous weapons, and the sort of faith in his own invincibility which helped to render him invincible, were his only recommendations. There was no art in what he did. His only tactics was to charge straight at the enemy on sight. When he charged on good ground, no foe could resist his impact ; but he might end his gallop in a marsh, or against a palisade. At Mansoura, St. Louis' knights were entangled in the streets

CUMBROUS ARMIES.

Dismounted Knight. (13th Century.)

of a town and utterly worsted. The knight was ignorant of art. Each army was formed in three great columns or " battles ; " these galloped upon the enemy similarly marshaled, and, after a tussle of hours, one or the other would be forced back, often by an accident of terrain or on account of the loss of a leader. To set a successful ambush was a rarity which was applauded as a wonder. For many centuries armies moved into the enemy's territory, not to secure a strategic point, but to ravage the land and secure plunder from the harassed people. Victualing by any method was not attempted, and so soon as one section was eaten out, another must be sought, irrespective of its military value.

Battles were rare. The rival armies did no reconnoitring,

and thus at times scarcely knew each other's whereabouts. They met by accident more often than by design, and not infrequently sent word to each other to meet at a given spot and fight it out, — as the Cimbri had invited Marius to battle at Vercellse. Even then it exceeded their ability to marshal their forces on fair terms, for it took all day to deploy a small marching column into line of battle. A modern army manoeuvres thrice as rapidly.

RAIDS OR SIEGES.

Knight in Armor. (13th Century.)

The feudal knight was so utterly without discipline or reliability that mercenaries gradually crept into favor. But the mercenary was cast in the same mould ; he was a man in

armor, if not a knight, and was equally bold and useless, though more loyal to his chief. So long as he was paid, he would stay with the colors, which was more than you could count on in the knight. The mercenary became the support of autocratic monarchs ; but when, at the end of a war, bands of mercenaries began to move to and fro over the face of the country, seeking a new lord and fresh campaigns, they became of questionable utility and unquestionable danger.

The feudal system called for castles ; castles led to a war of sieges rather than a war of manoeuvring and fighting. Many of these castles were to the armies of that day more serious obstacles than Ehrenbreitstein or Gibraltar to a modern force. They began by being simple in construction ; they ended by being elaborate and solid. There were but two ways of capturing them : starvation or undermining the walls, and to the latter the mediaeval armies were ill adapted. These castles robbed war of all skill, and reduced operations to the scale of raids which disregarded their existence, or to a series of tiresome sieges. For generations after the invention of gunpowder, artillery had small effect on these solid feudal structures ; less than the ancient catapults and rams.

The Crusades were the typical work of the mailed knight ; and as this warrior made practically no impress on the art of war, so the Crusades teach us no useful lessons. Both were equally unpractical ; each served its purpose, but neither war

THE CRUSADES. 9

nor warrior was worthy of imitation, unless it be in the guileless devotion of the latter. There were abundant and splendid feats of arms ; there was nothing to repay study. To record all the deeds of valor which war has evoked is but to record the history of the human race ; our task is to evolve the history of the art of war from these deeds: in other words, to separate from the mere acts of courage those instances of intelligent application of courage which have added to our knowledge of what constitutes modern war. The thousand years during which cavalry was the sole dependence of Europe have in this sense few lessons for the military student.

II. Reappearance Of Infantry. 1315-1500

It was the plucky peasant of Switzerland and Britain who reestablished the value of foot. The Swiss carried an eighteen-foot pike, or a heavy halberd ; and in their muscular grasp these weapons were irresistible. They fought in an echeloned line of three solid bodies, which cavalry could not break, nor the infantry of the day withstand, and they were hardy marchers. At Morgarten (1315) they destroyed an army of knights in a mountain pass, and at Laupen (1389) one in the open field. Only when broken could they be beaten, as they later were by the Spanish sword and buckler. Equally splendid was the record of the English long-bow, with its cloth-yard shaft. At Cr^cy (1346) this weapon utterly overthrew the French chivalry ; Poitiers (1356) and Agincourt (1415) proved that the day of infantry had come back. The long-bowman behind his stakes could not be approached by cavalry ; when broken or on the march he was like other foot. Swiss and Briton proved to the knight in armor that he was not invincible. Zisca's wagon-fort was another link in the same chain ; the Hussites became a terror in Germany. The disappearance of feudalism, the growth of intelligence, and the invention of gunpowder all contributed to reestablish warfare as a science. The cross-bow began to be replaced by the musket ; and the unwieldy knight gave way to the more active footman. As kings gained power and raised their own armies, war became more regular ; and toward 1600 conditions arose which might rehabilitate the art of war.

It was the courage of the hardy peasantry of two western nations quite as much as the invention of gunpowder, which put a term to the ascendancy of the feudal knight, and reestablished infantry as the arm which should bear the brunt of battle. The English long-bowman with his cloth-yard shaft found that he could annihilate the best of cavalry from a distance ; the Swiss pikeman proved that armored knights could not ride down his steady array of protended spears. These facts were a revelation, and at once modified the posi-

SWISS PIKEMAN.

Swiss Halberdier. (16th Century.)

tion of the horseman in war. Each represented a new development of shock and missile tactics. The Swiss array was a modern revival of the old phalanx of Philip and Alexander; and, though the bow was one of the most ancient of weapons, it had never yet been what the English yeoman made it.

The Swiss pike was eighteen feet long, with a steel head of from twelve to thirty-six inches, was grasped in both hands, and held shoulder high, with a downward slant. The second, third and fourth rank pikes protruded beyond the front ; the rest were held upright. This arm resembled in length and application the sarissa of Macedon, but it was differently held. Around the central pennon of the Swiss column stood the halberdiers, who wielded an eight-foot heavy-headed weapon which could cleave the best of armor, lop off arms or legs, or even, it is said, decapitate a horse. Without the upland brawn and tremendous national spirit which inspired the Swiss, however, even these weapons would have availed nothing. It was hardy strength, the love of country, and the instinct of liberty which lent them terror.

The Swiss were rapidly

Swiss Sergeant Halberdier.

Swiss Pikeman. (16th Century.)

SWISS TACTICS.

mobilized and swift on the march. Like the

early Roman legions, they always attacked, and

wearing no armor, could not only keep well

ahead of the cumbrous armies of the day, but

descend on the enemy's line with an impetus

like the avalanches of their native

hills. They employed light troops,

cross-bowmen, to skirmish ahead of

the columns, and these retired into

the intervals when the charge was

opened.

The Swiss had no great generals.

It was the courage and steadfastness, the weapons and skill of the men which won. But they had an admirable battle-field tactics. They marshaled three columns, Vorhut (vanguard), Gewaltshaufen (power-mass) and Nachhut (rear-guard), and launched them on the foe in echelon, with the advantage of successive impact, independence of movement and the safety of each column from partaking of the repulse of another. At times the three columns were marshaled with the centre or the wings in advance, a partial checker- wise formation. The wedge and the hollow square, or "hedgehog," showed that the Swiss had studied the tactical forms of antiquity.

The first victory of the Swiss foot, at Morgarten in 1315, was not due to its superior formation or tactics. The feudal horsemen were lured into

Swiss Captain. (16th Century.)

Lance and Halberd Heads. (16th Century.)

FOOT BEATS HORSE.

Bernese Soldiers. (15th Century.)

an icy mountain-pass, with a precipice above them on the right, and a lake below them on the left : and here they were destroyed by rolling logs and bowlders down upon their line, and thus hurling them into the gulf beneath.

This, coupled to a furious front attack with the deadly halberd, gave the knights no room to set their lances in rest, or to swing their swords.

Morgarten was not a battle; it was a surprise and butchery ; but it opened the eyes

of the arrogant knight to the fact that, even though he be afoot, a man 's a man for a' that. At Laupen (1339) the Swiss "£ infantry, quite unsustained | and in the open field, met, ■? with its serried ranks and 3 bristling pikes, an array of d heavy horse backed by the 8 best infantry of the day. The CJ foot was quickly dispersed, « and all the power of the armored knights could not drive the columns from their ground. Infantry, after a dozen centuries of decay, had again proved its worth.

Bannockburn accomplished the same end in another part of the world and in a different way.

FOOT AGAINST FOOT.

It was only by similar tactics to their own — by dismounted heavy cavalry, or by bodies of footmen formed on the same

method, such as the Landskneckte of Germany — that the Swiss met their match. Later on the Spaniards, with sword and buckler, found that they could annihilate the Swiss column, if, like the legionaries against the phalanx at Pydna, they could but once penetrate a gap.