behind them. Long after Zisca’s death the prestige of his tactics
remained undiminished, and his successors were able to accomplish feats
of war which would have appeared incredible in the first years of the
war.

When at last the defeat of the Taborites took place, it resulted from
the dissensions of the Bohemians themselves, not from the increased
efficiency of their enemies. The battle of Lipan, where Procopius
fell and the extreme party were crushed, was a victory won not by the
Germans, but by the more moderate sections of the Tzech nation. The
event of the fight indicates at once the weak spot of Hussite tactics,
and the tremendous self-confidence of the Taborites. After Procopius
had repelled the first assaults on his circle of waggons, his men--
forgetting that they had to do not with the panic-stricken hosts of
their old enemies, but with their own former comrades,--left their
defences and charged the retreating masses. They were accustomed to
see the manœuvre succeed against the terrorized Germans, and forgot
that it was only good when turned against adversaries whose spirit
was entirely broken. In itself an advance meant the sacrifice of all
the benefits of a system of tactics which was essentially defensive.
The weakness in fact of the device of the waggon-fortress was that,
although securing the repulse of the enemy, it gave no opportunity for
following up that success, if he was wary and retreated in good order.
This however was not a reproach to the inventor of the system, for
Zisca had originally to seek not for the way to win decisive victories,
but for the way to avoid crushing defeats. At Lipan the moderate
party had been beaten back but not routed. Accordingly when the
Taborites came out into the open field, the retreating masses turned to
fight, while a cavalry reserve which far outnumbered the horsemen of
Procopius, rode in between the circle of waggons and the troops which
had left it. Thus three-quarters of the Taborite army were caught and
surrounded in the plain, where they were cut to pieces by the superior
numbers of the enemy. Only the few thousands who had remained behind
within the waggon-fortress succeeded in escaping. Thus was demonstrated
the incompleteness for military purposes of a system which had been
devised as a political necessity, not as an infallible recipe for
victory.

The moral of the fight of Lipan was indeed the same as the moral of the
fight of Hastings. Purely defensive tactics are hopeless when opposed
by a commander of ability and resource, who is provided with steady
troops. If the German princes had been generals and the German troops
well-disciplined, the careers of Zisca and Procopius would have been
impossible. Bad strategy and panic combined to make the Hussites seem
invincible. When, however, they were met by rational tactics they were
found to be no less liable to the logic of war than other men.

Long before the flails and hand-guns of Zisca’s infantry had turned
to rout the chivalry of Germany, another body of foot-soldiers
had won the respect of Eastern Europe. On the battlefields of the
Balkan Peninsula the Slav and the Magyar had learned to dread the
slave-soldiery of the Ottoman Sultans. Kossova had suggested and
Nicopolis had proved that the day of the unquestioned supremacy of the
horseman was gone in the East as much as in the West. The Janissaries
of Murad and Bayezid had stood firm before desperate cavalry charges,
and beaten them off with loss. It is curious to recognize in the
East the tactics which had won the battles of Creçy and Agincourt.
The Janissaries owed their successes to precisely the same causes as
the English archer. Their great weapon was the bow, not indeed the
long-bow of the West, but nevertheless a very efficient arm. Still
more notable is it that they carried the stakes which formed part of
the equipment of the English bowman, and planted them before their
line whenever an assault by cavalry was expected. Again and again--
notably at Nicopolis and Varna--do we hear of the impetuous charge
which had ridden down the rest of the Turkish array, failing at last
before the ‘palisade’ of the Janissaries, and the deadly fire of arrows
from behind it. The rest of the Janissary’s equipment was very simple:
he carried no defensive arms, and wore only a pointed felt cap and a
flowing grey tunic reaching to the knees. Besides his bow and quiver
he bore a scimitar at his side and a ‘handjar’ or long knife in his
waist-cloth. Though their disciplined fanaticism made them formidable
foes in close combat, it was not for that kind of fighting that the
Janissaries were designed. When we find them storming a breach or
leading a charge, they were going beyond their own province. Their
entire want of armour would alone have sufficed to show that they were
not designed for hand-to-hand contests, and it is a noteworthy fact
that they could never be induced to take to the use of the pike. Like
the English archery, they were used either in defensive positions or
to supplement the employment of cavalry. Eastern hosts ever since the
days of the Parthians had consisted of great masses of horsemen, and
their weakness had always lain in the want of some steadier force to
form the nucleus of resistance and the core of the army. Cavalry can
only act on the offensive, yet every general is occasionally compelled
to take the defensive. The Ottomans, however, were enabled to solve the
problem of producing an army efficient for both alike, when once Orchan
had armed and trained the Janissaries. The Timariot horsemen who formed
the bulk of the Turkish army differed little from the cavalry of other
Oriental states. Not unfrequently they suffered defeats; Shah Ismail’s
Persian cavaliers rode them down at Tchaldiran, and the Mamelukes broke
them at Radama. If it had been with his feudal horse alone that the
Turkish Sultan had faced the chivalry of the West, there is little
reason to suppose that the conquest of the Balkan Peninsula would ever
have been effected. Attacked in its own home the Hungarian--perhaps
even the Servian--state could in the fourteenth century put into the
field armies equal in numbers and individually superior to the Ottoman
horsemen[123]. But the Servian and the Hungarian, like the Persian
and the Mameluke, did not possess any solid and trustworthy body of
infantry. To face the disciplined array of the Janissaries they had
only the chaotic and half-armed hordes of the national levy. To this we
must ascribe the splendid successes of the Sultans: however the tide of
battle might fluctuate, the Janissaries would stand like a rock behind
their stakes, and it was almost unknown that they should be broken.
Again and again they saved the fortune of the day: at those few fights
where they could not, they at least died in their ranks, and saved the
honour of their corps. At the disaster of Angora they continued to
struggle long after the rest of the Turkish army had dispersed, and
were at last exterminated rather than beaten. No steadier troops could
have been found in any part of Europe.

Perhaps the most interesting of Ottoman fights from the tactician’s
point of view was the second battle of Kossova (1448). This was not--
like Varna or Mohacs--an ill-advised attempt to break the Turkish
line by a headlong onset. John Huniades, whom long experience had
made familiar with the tactics of his enemy, endeavoured to turn
against Sultan Murad his own usual scheme. To face the Janissaries he
drew up in his centre a strong force of German infantry, armed with
the hand-guns whose use the Hussites had introduced. On the wings
the chivalry of Hungary were destined to cope with the masses of the
Timariot cavalry. In consequence of this arrangement, the two centres
faced each other for long hours, neither advancing, but each occupied
in thinning the enemy’s ranks, the one with the arbalest-bolt, the
other with the bullet. Meanwhile on the wings desperate cavalry charges
succeeded each other, till on the second day the Wallachian allies
of Huniades gave way before the superior numbers of the Ottomans and
the Christian centre had to draw off and retire. So desperate had the
fighting been, that half the Hungarian army and a third of that of
Murad was left upon the field. The tactical meaning of the engagement
was plain: good infantry could make a long resistance to the Ottoman
arms, even if they could not secure the victory. The lesson however
was not fully realized, and it was not till the military revolution of
the sixteenth century that infantry was destined to take the prominent
part in withstanding the Ottoman. The landsknechts and hackbut-men of
Charles V and Ferdinand of Austria proved much more formidable foes
to the Sultans than the gallant but undisciplined light cavalry[124]
of Hungary. This was to a great extent due to the perfection of
pike-tactics in the West. The Turks, whose infantry could never be
induced to adopt that weapon[125], relied entirely on their firearms,
and were checked by the combination of pike and hackbut.

It is noticeable that the Janissaries took to the use of the firelock
at a comparatively early date. It may have been in consequence of the
effectiveness of Huniades’ hand-guns at Kossova, that we find them
discarding the arbalest in favour of the newer weapon. But at any rate
the Ottoman had fully accomplished the change long before it had been
finally carried out in Europe, and nearly a century earlier than the
nations of the further East[126].

In recognizing the full importance of cannon the Sultans were equally
in advance of their times. The capture of Constantinople by Mahomet II
was probably the first event of supreme importance whose result was
determined by the power of artillery. The lighter guns of previous
years had never accomplished any feat comparable in its results to that
which was achieved by the siege-train of the Conqueror. Some decades
later we find the Janissaries’ line of arquebuses supported by the fire
of field-pieces, often brought forward in great numbers, and chained
together so as to prevent cavalry charging down the intervals between
the guns[127]. This device is said to have been employed with great
success against an enemy superior in the numbers of his horsemen, alike
at Dolbek and Tchaldiran.

The ascendency of the Turkish arms was finally terminated by the
conjunction of several causes. Of these the chief was the rise in
central Europe of standing armies composed for the most part of
disciplined infantry. But it is no less undoubted that much was due to
the fact that the Ottomans after the reign of Soliman fell behind their
contemporaries in readiness to keep up with the advance of military
skill, a change which may be connected with the gradual transformation
of the Janissaries from a corps into a caste. It should also be
remembered that the frontier of Christendom was now covered not by one
isolated fortress of supreme importance, such as Belgrade had been,
but by a double and triple line of strong towns, whose existence made
it hard for the Turks to advance with rapidity, or to reap any such
results from success in a single battle or siege as had been possible
in the previous century.

On the warfare of the other nations of Eastern Europe it will not be
necessary to dwell. The military history of Russia, though interesting
in itself, exercised no influence on the general progress of the Art
of War. With the more important development of new tactical methods in
South-Western Europe we have already dealt, when describing the Spanish
infantry in the chapter devoted to the Swiss and their enemies.

All the systems of real weight and consideration have now been
discussed. In the overthrow of the supremacy of feudal cavalry the
tactics of the shock and the tactics of the missile had each played
their part: which had been the more effective it would be hard to say.
Between them however the task had been successfully accomplished. The
military strength of that system which had embraced all Europe in its
cramping fetters, had been shattered to atoms. Warlike efficiency was
the attribute no longer of a class but of whole nations; and war had
ceased to be an occupation in which feudal chivalry found its pleasure,
and the rest of society its ruin. The ‘Art of War’ had become once more
a living reality, a matter not of tradition but of experiment, and
the vigorous sixteenth century was rapidly adding to it new forms and
variations. The middle ages were at last over, and the stirring and
scientific spirit of the modern world was working a transformation in
military matters, which was to make the methods of mediæval war seem
even further removed from the strategy of our own century, than are the
operations of the ancients in the great days of Greece and Rome.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Cf. Vegetius and Maurice.

[2] Lord Mahon in his Life of Belisarius is wrong in asserting that the
legion was no longer known in Justinian’s day. The term is mentioned,
though rarely, in Procopius, who more frequently calls the legionary
troops οἱ ἐκ τῶν καταλόγων {hoi ek tôn katalogôn}.

[3] Cf. Tacitus, Annals, ii. 21.

[4] The old legions of the first century are found in full vigour
at the end of the third. The coins of the British usurper Carausius
commemorate as serving under him several of the legions which, as early
as the reign of Claudius, were already stationed in Britain and Gaul.

[5] He had 132 legions and ‘numeri,’ besides 100 unattached cohorts.

[6] See Gibbon, ii. cap. xvii.

[7] See Tacitus, Annals, ii. 14.

[8] When the Romans entirely abandoned the offensive an increased army
became necessary, as a frontier held against raids requires to be
protected on every point. Hence the conscriptions and large composition
money of Constantine’s epoch. He is said to have had nearly half a
million of men in his forces.

[9] See ὈΥΡΒΙΚΙΟΥ ἘΠΙΤΗΔΕΥΜΑ {OURBIKIOU EPITÊDEUMA}, a fourth century
work, printed at the end of the Paris, 1598, edition of Arrian.

[10] The Grand Masters of the infantry and cavalry, the Count of the
Palace, and 45 commanders of different corps.

[11] Cf. Ammianus Marcellinus with accounts of the Egyptian crowd at
the first battle of El Teb.

[12] Maurice’s Stratêgikon, vi.

[13] At the still fiercer fight, where the army of the usurper Eugenius
almost defeated Theodosius, we find that it was the barbarian cavalry
of Arbogast, not the native infantry, which had become (only seven
years after Maximus’ defeat) the chief force of the Western Empire.

[14] Vegetius, bk. i; ii. (15) and iii. (14).

[15] This Teutonic word is in full acceptation in the sixth century.

[16] Agathias.

[17] Though often called ‘bipennis’ it had not necessarily two blades,
that word having become a mere general name for ‘axe.’

[18] See Hewitt’s Ancient Armour, vol. i. 8.

[19] ‘Terrae glacialiter adstricti’ are the Chronicler’s words.

[20] Capitularies, ed. Baluz, i. 508.

[21] A short weapon like the ‘francisca,’ not the long Danish axe which
afterwards became the national arm.

[22] If these were the ‘lignis imposita saxa’ of which the Norman
chronicler of Hastings spoke, as being English weapons.

[23] Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under A.D. 866 and passim.

[24] See in the Roman de Rou, ii. 262:--

   ‘Hoem ki od hache volt ferir,
    Od sez dous mainz l’estuet tenir.
    Ne pot entendre a sei covrir,
    S’il velt ferir de grant aïr.
    Bien ferir e covrir ensemble
    Ne pot l’en fair ço me semble.’

[25] The fate of the only one of Wellington’s squares which attempted
to deploy, in order to drive off the infantry which were annoying it,
may well be compared with that of Harold’s soldiery. ‘The concentrated
fire of this close line of skirmishers was now telling heavily upon the
devoted squares of Alten’s division. It was, however, impossible to
deploy, as in the hollow, near La Haye Sainte, there lay in wait a body
of the enemy’s cavalry. At last the 5th line-battalion of the King’s
German Legion, forsaking its square formation, opened out, and advanced
against the mass of tirailleurs. The French gave way as the line
advanced at the charge; at the next moment the battalion was furiously
assailed by a regiment of cuirassiers, who, taking it in flank, fairly
rolled it up. So severe was the loss sustained, that out of the whole
battalion not more than 30 men and a few officers were gradually
collected in their former position.’ (Siborne’s History of the Waterloo
Campaign, ii. pp. 114-15.)

[26] Πελεκυφóρος {Pelekuphóros} had become such a mere synonym for
Englishmen at Constantinople, that Anna Comnena considers that she
defines Robert of Normandy sufficiently, when she calls him ‘the
brother of the King of the Πελεκυφóροι {Pelekuphóroi}.’

[27] For these details see Anna Comnena’s Life of Alexius. She
calls the commander of the Varangians Ναμéτης {Namétês} or Ναμπéτης
{Nampétês}: what English or Scandinavian name can this represent?
Considering the remote resemblance of some of Anna’s Western names to
their real forms, it is perhaps hopeless to expect an answer.

[28] See especially:--Maurice’s Stratêgikon (Upsala 1664), written
about A.D. 595; Leo’s Tactica (Leyden 1612), written about A.D. 900;
Nicephorus Phocas’ ΠΕΡΙ ΠΑΡΑΔΡΟΜΗΣ ΠΟΛΕΜΟΥ {PERI PARADROMÊS POLEMOU}
(in Migne’s Patrologia), written about A.D. 960.

[29] Gibbon, v. p. 382.

[30] Nic. Pho. Περὶ παραδρόμης πολέμου {Peri paradromês polemou}, § 17.

[31] Nothing better attests the military spirit of the Eastern
aristocracy than their duels: cf. the cases of Prusian, etc., in
Finlay’s Greece.

[32] Leo, Tactica, § 18. The paragraphs here are a condensation of
Leo’s advice, and sometimes an elucidation, not a literal translation.

[33] σκουτáτοι {skoutátoi}, one of the curious Latin survivals in
Byzantine military terminology. In translitterating Latin words the
Greeks paid no attention to quantity.

[34] Much confusion in military history has been caused by writers
attributing the archery of the Turks to the Saracens: the latter were
not employers of archery-tactics, but lancers. Battles like Dorylæum,
which are given as examples of Saracen warfare, were fought really by
Turks.

[35] Leo, § 18. 124.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Ibid. 120.

[38] Leo, Tactica: various scattered notices in § 18.

[39] In Leo’s day the Oriental themes had not been sub-divided, as
was afterwards done by his son Constantine. There were then eight
themes in Asia Minor, each of which contained a military division of
the same name, and could be reckoned on for some 4000 heavy cavalry.
These were ‘Armeniacon, Anatolicon, Obsequium, Thracesion, Cibyrrhœot,
Bucellarion, and Paphlagonia.’ Optimaton, the ninth theme, had (as
Constantine tells us in his treatise on the empire), no military
establishments.

[40] See in the next section of this treatise for the plan of his
formation, p. 45.

[41] Leo, Tactica, 18. 118.

[42] Ibid. 136.

[43] Ibid. 118.

[44] See Colonel Clery’s Minor Tactics.

[45] Leo, Tactica, 18.

[46] Compare with this the stratagem by which the Russian army escaped
from a compromised position during the retreat before the battle of
Austerlitz. ‘In agreeing to an Armistice,’ wrote Kutusoff, in a very
Byzantine tone, ‘I had in view nothing but to gain time, and thereby
obtain the means of removing to a distance from the enemy, and saving
my army.’ Dumas, xiv. 48.

[47] The Middle Ages dimly felt this, and (as Gibbon tells us) the
Italian Chroniclers name him the ‘first of the Greek Emperors.’

[48] As, for example, the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who, in
his book on the ‘Themata Orientis,’ attributes the invention of the
‘Theme’ and ‘tagma’ to Heraclius.

[49] Βάνδον {Bandon}, bandum, had become a common word in Justinian’s
time: it is used as a Teutonic equivalent for ‘vexillum’ in both its
senses.

[50] Comes had in Constantine’s days been applied to five great
officers alone.

[51] This curious word is first formed in Vegetius, where it is only
applied to the masses of a barbarian army. (Cf. English ‘throng.’)

[52] See the evidence of coins: the title ΠΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΘΕῼ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΤΩΝ
ΡΩΜΑΙΩΝ {PISTOS EN THEÔ BASILEUS TÔN RÔMAIÔN} only becomes common under
the Amorian dynasty.

[53] See Leo’s Tactica, xii.

[54] Ibid. vi.

[55] Leo, Tactica, vi.

[56] E.g. a κελίκον {kelikon} and a ματζούκιον {matzoukion}.

[57] The century contained 10 decuries, but the ‘decury’ was 16 not 10
men: thus the century was 160 strong. Three centuries went to a ‘band,’
which would thus be about 450 men.

[58] Gold coin, worth perhaps 12_s._ in metal value.

[59] Nicephorus Phocas, in his ΠΑΡΑΔΡΟΜΗ ΠΟΛΕΜΟΥ {PARADROMÊ POLEMOU},
says that ‘Armenians must never be placed in this line of picquets, as
their habitual drowsiness at night makes them untrustworthy.’

[60] Leo, Tactica, iv. § 1.

[61] Nothing gives a better idea of the real military character of
the Byzantine aristocracy than a perusal of the curious tenth century
romance of ‘Digenes Akritas,’ a member of the house of Ducas, who is
‘Klissurarch’ of the passes of Taurus, and performs with his mighty
mace all the exploits of a hero of chivalry. He really existed, and
bore the name of Basil Pantherios. See Revue des Deux Mondes, vol. 118.

[62] Eustace de Ribeaumont, for instance, who gave the madly
impractical advice which lost the battle of Poictiers, was, we are
told, an officer of high ability.

[63] The Black Prince’s campaign in South France, for example, before
the battle of Poictiers, was merely an enormous and destructive raid.
He besieged no important town, and did not attempt to establish any
posts to command the country through which he passed.

[64] The difficulty experienced by Edward III and Henry V in crossing
the Somme is equally remarkable.

[65] ‘Capitales barones suos cum paucis secum duxit, solidarios vero
milites innumeros.’ Rob. de Monte, 1159.

[66] The classical instances of the successful employment of the mine
in England are the captures of Rochester Castle in 1215, and Bedford
Castle in 1224, both works of enormous labour.

[67] A revival of the old Roman system of fortification.

[68] As, for example, did Edward III before Calais. He fortified all
approaches passable for a relieving army, and waited quietly in his
lines.

[69] This was borrowed either from the Byzantine or the Saracen: it is
quite distinct from the rude club occasionally found in the West at an
earlier date, as, for example, in the hands of Bishop Odo at Hastings.

[70] See, for example, the case cited in Von Elgger’s Kriegswesen der
Schweizerischen Eidgenossen, where a patrician of Constance having
refused to accept a Bernese plappert (small coin) in payment of a
wager, and having scornfully called the bear represented on it a cow,
the Confederates took the matter up as a national insult, and ravaged
the territory of Constance without any declaration of war.

[71] At Novara, for instance, they put to death after the battle
several hundred German prisoners.

[72] See Montluc’s Commentaries.

[73] At Morat the contingent of Bern alone brought with them (besides
the great standard of the canton) the flags of twenty-four towns and
districts (Thun, Aarau, Lenzburg, Interlaken, Burgdorf, the Haslithal,
the Emmenthal, etc. etc.) and of eight craft-guilds and six other
associations.

[74] The halberd only differed from the English ‘brown-bill’ in having
a spike.

[75] The ‘Morning-Star’ was a club five feet long, set thickly at its
end with iron spikes. It had disappeared by the middle of the 15th
century. The ‘Lucern Hammer’ was like a halberd, but had three curved
prongs instead of the hatchet-blade: it inflicted a horrible jagged
wound.

[76] Macchiavelli, Art of War, tr. Farneworth, p. 32.

[77] Macchiavelli even says that the pikemen in his day did not wear
the steel-cap, which was entirely confined to the halberdiers. But this
can be shown from other sources to be an exaggeration.

[78] See Kirk’s Charles the Bold, book iv. chap. 2.

[79] At Morat, according to Commines, they were nearly a third, 10,000
out of 35,000. At Arbedo they were a seventh: among the Confederates
who joined Charles VIII in his march to Naples only a tenth of the
force.

[80] E.g. the Forest Cantons were bitterly opposed to the Bernese
policy of engaging in war with Charles the Bold; but their troops did
no worse service than the rest at Granson or Morat.

[81] Rudolf von Erlach’s position as commander-in-chief at Laupen was
quite exceptional. If we hear in the cases mentioned above of Swiss
commanders, we must remember that they were co-ordinate authorities,
among whom one man might exert more influence than another, but only
by his personal ascendancy, not by legal right. It is a mistake to say
that Réné of Lorraine formally commanded at Morat or Nancy.

[82] Macchiavelli has a very clear account of this form of advance, see
Arte de Guerra, tr. Farneworth, book iii.

[83] See Elgger’s Kriegswesen der Schweizerische, etc. p. 280.

[84] See Elgger as before.

[85] Arte de Guerra, tr. Farneworth, p. 57.

[86] Quoted at length in Elgger.

[87] At Bannockburn, the Scots had made good use of their cavalry,
which, though not strong, gave them an advantage wanting to the Swiss
at Laupen.

[88] Similarly at the battle of the Standard the English knights
dismounted to meet the furious rush of the Galwegians.

[89] The numbers which the Swiss Chroniclers allow to have been present
at Sempach are evidently minimised. The whole force of four cantons
was there, yet we are told of only 1500 men! Yet the _three_ cantons
seventy-one years before put the same number in the field, and the
populous state of Lucern had now joined them.

[90] The Confederates were forming their column in Sempach Wood, when
Leopold’s artillery opened on them--

   ‘With their long lances levelled before the fight they stood,
    And set their cannon firing at those within the wood;
    Then to the good Confederates the battle was not sweet,
    When all around the mighty boughs dropped crashing at their feet.’

    [Rough translation of Halbshuter’s contemporary ‘Sempacherlied.’]

[91] Sismondi, who writes entirely from Swiss sources as to this fight,
gives a very different impression from Machiavelli. The later cites
Arbedo as the best known check received by the Swiss, and puts their
loss down at several thousands (Arte de Guerra, tr. Farneworth, p. 33).
Müller evidently tries to minimise the check; but we may judge from
our knowledge of Swiss character how great must have been the pressure
required to make a Confederate officer think of surrender. Forty-four
members of the Cantonal councils of Lucern fell in the fight: ‘The
contingent of Lucern had crossed the lake of the four Cantons in ten
large barges, when setting out on this expedition: it returned in two!’
These facts, acknowledged by the Swiss themselves, seem to show that
the figure of 400 men for their loss is placed absurdly low.

[92] From a Lucern ‘Raths-Protocoll’ of 1422, ‘Da es den Eidgenossen
nicht so wohl ergangen seie,’ etc.

[93] Yet even the Duke said, that ‘Against the Swiss it will never do
to march unprepared.’ Panagirola, quoted by Kirk, vol. iii.

[94] ‘If we attack Romont,’ said Ulrich Kätzy at the Swiss council of
war, ‘while we are beating him the duke will have time and opportunity
to escape; let us go round the hills against the main-body, and when
that is routed, we shall have the rest without a stroke.’ This showed
real tactical skill.

[95] Machiavelli, Arte de Guerra, book ii.

[96] Frundsberg, the old captain of landsknechts, gives a cool and
businesslike account of these shocks, ‘Wo unter den langen Wehren
etliche Glieder zu grund gehen, werden die Personen, so dahinter
stehen, etwas zaghaft,’ etc.

[97] The two-handed sword had almost entirely, and the ‘morning-star’
and ‘Lucern hammer’ quite, disappeared from use by the end of the
fifteenth century.

[98] Machiavelli, Arte de Guerra, book ii. p. 34.

[99] It is a curious fact that Chaka, one of Cetywayo’s predecessors as
king of the Zulus, set himself to solve this problem. He took a hundred
men and armed them with the shield and the ‘short assegai,’ a thrusting
weapon resembling a sword rather than a spear in its use. He then set
them to fight another hundred furnished with the shield and the ‘long
assegai,’ the slender javelin which had previously been the weapon of
his tribe. The wielders of the shorter weapon won with ease, and the
king thereupon ordered its adoption throughout the Zulu army. It was
this change which originally gave the Zulus their superiority over
their neighbours.

[100] Machiavelli, Arte de Guerra, book ii.

[101] See Sismondi’s Italian History, vol. ix. p. 213.

[102] E.g. by the diminutive archer who crouches under a thegn’s
shield, like Teucer protected by Ajax.

[103] Giraldus Cambrensis, Itin. Cambriæ, c. 3, speaks of the Welsh
bowmen as being able to send an arrow through an oak door four fingers
thick. The people of Gwent (Monmouth and Glamorgan) were reckoned the
best archers. Those of North Wales were always spearmen, not archers.

[104] Stubbs’ Select Charters, p. 374.

[105] In the Pay Roll of the garrison of Rhuddlan castle, 1281, we find
‘paid to Geoffrey le Chamberlin for the wages of twelve cross-bowmen,
and thirteen archers, for twenty-four days, £7 8_s._, each cross-bowman
receiving by the day 4_d._, and each archer 2_d._

[106] Nic. Trivet, Annales, 282.

[107] It is surely unnecessary to call in the aid of treachery--as
historians have so frequently done--in order to account for the rout
of a force numbered by hundreds, by one numbered by thousands.

[108] The characteristic of their descendants in the second decade of
the present century.

[109] 320 miles in eighteen days; a rate surpassing any continuous
marching recorded of late years.

[110] See for Henry’s columns of route Viollet-le-Duc’s Tactique des
Armées Françaises au Moyen Age.

[111] See Viollet-le-Duc’s Tactique des Armées Françaises au Moyen Age,
p. 300.

[112] ‘Gladio ad usum fossarum verso, et ungue verrente tellurem
concavant: et ante se campum equis inadibilem mira hostium astucia
efficiebat.’ Blondel, iv. 6.

[113] ‘Et si Anglici, incaepto conflictu praestantes, Gallos
retrogressos insequi ansi fuissent,’ etc. Blondel, iv. 7.

[114] ‘Fusis enim Anglorum bellis robusti quingenti sagittarii in
hortum sentibus conseptum prosiliunt ... ac inexorabili Gallorum
ferocitate, ut quisque genu flexo arcum traderet, [in sign of
surrender] omnes (nec unus evasit) gladio confodiuntur.’ Blondel, iv. 8.

[115] Grafton, Henry VI, year xxvii.

[116] Hall.

[117] The whole country being disaffected and ready--as the events of
the autumn proved--to revolt in favour of Warwick or Henry VI, the
suppression of the Lincolnshire rebellion and the expulsion of the
King-maker were remarkable achievements.

[118] This must have been in the Stroudwater, as Edward marched from
Wooton-under-Edge by Stroud and Painswick on Cheltenham.

[119] Somerset attributed this to treachery on the part of Lord
Wenlock, commander of the ‘centre-battle,’ who was a follower of
Warwick and not an old Lancastrian. Escaping from the advancing
Yorkists he rode up to Wenlock, and, without speaking a word, brained
him with his battle-axe.

[120] Grafton.

[121] Edward IV is said to have had in his employment in 1470 a small
corps of Germans with ‘hand-guns.’ Better known is the band of 2000
hackbut-men which the Earl of Lincoln brought to Stoke in 1487. The
name of their leader, Martin Schwart, survives in the ballads of the
day.

[122] For an excellent description of Hussite tactics, see Denis, Hus
et la Guerre des Hussites.

[123] At the first battle of Kossova we know that the allied Servians
and Bosnians outnumbered the Turks.

[124] Already since the middle of the 15th century known as ‘Hussars.’

[125] Montecuculi notes that even in his day far into the 17th century,
the Turk had not yet taken to the pike.

[126] The arquebus and cannon were novelties to the Mamelukes as late
as 1517, if we are to trust the story of Kait Bey.

[127] Richard III of England is said to have adopted this expedient at
Bosworth.

Transcriber's Notes:

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
quotation marks retained.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. Inconsistent
hyphenation retained.

This book uses both “Themes” and “themes”, “Zürich” and “Zurich”,
“ascendancy” and “ascendency”.

Latinized transliterations of Greek are approximate.

Page 22: “develope” was printed that way.

Page 28: “Patrologia” was imperfectly printed.

Page 123: “fourteenth and fifteenth century” was printed that way.