by William Weir
These modern forts were much larger than the old-fashioned castles, and they were far more expensive. The forts and the cannons needed to defend them were so expensive that only kings, free cities, and very great lords could afford them. Cannons played a big part in ending the Middle Ages — not because they could knock down any fortification, but because they made practical fortification too expensive for the many minor nobles who had previously cut Europe up into thousands of tiny, almost autonomous, fiefdoms.
Chapter 13
Seizing the Seas: The Sailing Man of War
National Archives from U.S. Bureau of ships
U.S. frigate Constellation battles the French frigate L’Insurgente in 1799.
The time had come to put an end to the Frankish meddling in the trade with the East. The two great powers of western Islam, Turkey and Egypt, had put aside their rivalries to send a combined fleet of 200 galleys to the Indian Ocean. Each of the galleys had three cannons positioned to fire over its bow, and the fleet carried 15,000 soldiers for boarding the ships of the infidels. The admiral, Emir Husain Kurdi, had spent two years looking for the main Frankish fleet, but at last the warriors of Islam were about to meet the interlopers.
The “Franks” (actually Portuguese, but in 1509, all European Christians were Franks to the Muslims) had sent their ships around Africa and were trading with India. Trade with the East had long been a Muslim monopoly. Over-land trade consisted of caravans of Turkish Muslims passing through the Muslim lands of central Asia. Goods that got to Europe this way were extremely expensive, because each local ruler levied a tax on the caravans. Transportation by sea was less expensive. The Arabs of Arabia and the east coast of Africa had pioneered the sea routes centuries before the birth of Mohammed. Europeans had lost the Crusades, but had gained a thirst for the goods of the East. Merchandise from India, Persia, the Indies, and China traveled in Muslim bottoms and brought enormous wealth to the rulers of Dar es Islam (the Land of Islam), especially the Sultan of Egypt. The Egyptians shipped these Eastern luxuries to Europe through Venice, and that Italian city-state became a mighty power in the Mediterranean. That’s one of the reasons why Venice’s ally, the Sultan of Egypt, and its enemy, the Sultan of Turkey, seldom saw eye-to-eye.
This project was an exception. Portuguese capture of the trade with the East would hurt not only Egypt and Venice, but Turkey. The Ottoman Empire controlled much of the land traversed by the caravans. If the spices, gold, silk, and other goods from the East were available from Christian merchants and much lower prices, the Europeans could be expected to ignore the caravan-carried goods entirely.
That day, the Muslim fleet, stationed in the Indian port of Diu, heard that the Portuguese fleet was approaching. The Christians had only 17 ships, so the Muslim sailors rowed confidently out to meet them.
But the Christian ships were all larger than the Muslim galleys. More important, they were a different type of ship entirely, the product of centuries of development, most of which had escaped the notice of the Muslims.
Trade between the countries of western Europe was to a very large extent waterborne. It followed the many navigable rivers; crossed inland seas like the Mediterranean and the Baltic, much rougher seas such as the North Sea and even went into the ferocious Atlantic. Commerce in the Dar es Islam was different. In the arid lands that made up the bulk of Islamic territory, trade mostly happened by caravan. Trade was done by boat in the islands of the East Indies, but most of that was short-range island-hopping. The long distance trade between India, Africa, and Arabia depended on trade winds. For half of the year the winds blew west, for the other half, east. The Arabs had developed a specialized kind of ship, the dhow, to take advantage of that environment. For centuries, warships of the Mediterranean powers, both Muslim and Christian, had been almost identical — versions of the galley. (See Chapter 4.) Galleys were almost useless for commerce and were totally useless for long-distance trading. Most of a galley was taken up by rowers, and rowers need food and water. So galleys had to make frequent stops to replenish their supplies and had no room for merchandise. For trade, the Europeans developed “round ships,”
ships much wider in relation to their length than galleys. They had no oars and no rowers, so they could hold more cargo. To move these vessels in the variable winds of the northern seas, the European sailors developed sails that let them proceed against the wind. Weather was a problem for European sailors, especially those in northern waters. The round ships had high sides, unlike galleys, which had to be low to accommodate the oars (a necessity in rough water), and they were heavily built, unlike galleys, which had to be light so the rowers could move them rapidly.
Pirates were another problem. In the late 13th and 14th centuries, new types of ships were developed. They were slimmer than the old round ships and much faster, but they were still strongly built and still capable of carrying a decent amount of cargo. They had high “castles” for and aft, where crossbowmen could be stationed. They also had crows’ nests on their masts where more crosssbowmen could stand ready to shoot any pirates. When cannons were invented, ship owners mounted them on their vessels. At first they were placed on the castles, but the weight of the guns made the ships unstable. At the beginning of the 16th century, ship builders began cutting gun ports in the hulls.
With these sturdy, all-weather ships, able to sail against the wind and stay at sea for months without touching land, the Portuguese began working their way around Africa. England and France were immersed in the Hundred Years War, and Spain was still trying to drive the Muslims back to Africa. The Portuguese had already driven the Muslims out of their country, and they were able to look for a new route to the East.
The Turks and Egyptians saw sails and tried to form a line to attack the infidels. Forming a line wasn’t easy on the lively Indian Ocean. Galleys were much better adapted to inland seas such as the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
The galleys’ guns were loaded and their gunners ready. The musketeers made sure their matches were lighted, and the archers had nocked their arrows.
The Portuguese ships suddenly turned, presenting their sides to the advancing galleys. Then the broadsides began. The Portuguese cannons were heavier and outranged those of the Muslims. And the 17 Portuguese ships had more guns than the 200 Muslim galleys. Cannon balls ploughed through rows of rowers, leaving masses of gore, gory bodies and body parts. They smashed the hulls of the fragile galleys. It was more of a massacre than a battle. Shanbal, a contemporary Arab historian, gave an account of the battle that shows that the tendency to minimize your side’s losses and exaggerate the enemy’s is, by no means, modern:
Many on the Frankish side were slain, but eventually the Franks prevailed over the Muslims, and there befell a great slaughter of the Emir Husain’s soldiers, about 600 men, while the survivors fled to Diu. Nor did he [the Frank] depart until they had paid him much money.
Actually, the Muslim fleet was practically annihilated. The few surviving galleys ran themselves ashore and their crews fled toward Diu. Very few Portuguese were killed. The Muslims tried three more times to drive the Portuguese from the coast of Africa and India. Each time, it was galleys versus sailing ships. And each battle was a replay of Diu.
The introduction of the sailing warship changed warfare and changed the world. The galley suddenly became obsolete. Sailing ships that could travel to the far ends of the world and still outfight galleys replaced all oar-driven warships. There was one more big galley battle in the Mediterranean, at Lepanto, a couple of generations after Diu, but even there, Don Juan of Austria, the Christian admiral, used galleasses — big, heavily gunned ships — to break up the Turkish formation before the galleys clashed. The loss of the trade with the East began to weaken the Muslims, and the first Muslim casualty was Egypt. The Turks conquered the weakened sultanate on the Nile eight years after Diu.
Portugal thrived on the trade with the East. One of its India-bound ships made a navigational error and discovered Brazil, but befo
re that a Genoese sailor convinced the king and queen of Spain that he could get to the Far East quicker by sailing west; Columbus made a mistake, but he discovered a whole new world.
Chapter 14
Guns That Roll: Mobile Artillery
Moving a field piece into position.
Artillery, as we have seen, revolutionized siege warfare. The early siege guns, though, were far from ideal. They were so heavy that moving one of them was a major engineering project. Barrels were weak, especially those of bombards built of welded iron rods and hoops, so they couldn’t contain much pressure. Consequently their projectiles had low velocity. For lobbing one big stone ball after another at the same spot on a wall they were fine, but the rulers of France and Burgundy wanted more. Especially, they wanted more mobility.
The French and Burgundians engaged in an arms race beginning during the latter part of the Hundred Years War. The English, although they had introduced guns to that war at Crecy, didn’t bother to compete. They were convinced that their longbow was the master weapon. They were to regret that idea.
The new guns were all cast in bronze and could handle much higher pressures than the old bombards. Their barrels were much longer in proportion to the size of their projectiles. This not only increased accuracy, it gave the exploding powder more time to push the projectile, increasing the velocity. The wrought iron cannon balls were smaller than the stones shot from the bombards, but they were heavier in proportion to their size and much harder and tougher. They wouldn’t shatter on a stone wall as stone shot often did. The new guns were cast with lugs, called “trunnions,” on their barrels near the center of gravity. The guns swivelled on the trunnions so they could be elevated to hit targets at varying ranges. Most important, the guns were mounted on wheeled carriages so they could be easily moved.
The new French cannons brought an end to the Hundred Years War. The French were able to quickly concentrate their cannons against castles the English held, knock their walls down, and move to the next stronghold. But a couple of small engagements demonstrated that the French had a most potent field weapon as well as a wall-batterer.
At Formigny in 1450, French and English forces of equal size met. The English reaction was almost reflexive. Most of the knights dismounted and formed a wall of lance points. The infantry archers stepped forward, planted sharpened stakes to stop a cavalry charge, and strung their bows. All waited for the traditional French cavalry charge.
The French didn’t charge. They just hauled up their cannons and blasted the English away. At Castillon, three years later, an English army attacked a French force that was besieging an English stronghold. This time, the English were the attackers. The French had no longbows, but they had cannons. And they proved that cannons were as effective on the defensive as they were on the offensive. The English commander, John Talbot, was killed, and the Hundred Years War effectively ended soon afterwards. Later, mobile artillery was to prove its worth in another theater.
In 1494, Charles VIII of France took his artillery into Italy to enforce his claim to Naples. The result was a sort of 15th century Blitzkrieg. Cities and fortresses surrendered to the French as soon as they saw the French artillery.
There was some resistance in Naples. The fortress of Monte San Giovanni, which had previously withstood a siege of seven years, was taken in eight hours, after which the French troops massacred the garrison. Charles took Naples and then returned to France.
His success, however, inspired an alliance of Spain, Venice, the Papal States, and Milan. The Italian Wars, what some historians consider Europe’s first “world war,” had begun. Before they were over, all the major European powers except England, Sweden, and the Ottoman Empire would be sucked into the Italian battlefield. The principal combatants were the strangely named Holy Roman Empire of the German People — which, under Emperor Charles V, included the rich and powerful kingdom of Spain — and the kingdom of France. The perpetu-ally quarreling Italian mini-states allied themselves with one or another of the great powers. The Swiss cantons supplied troops to both the French and the Imperialists. Infantrymen were, in fact, the main cash crop of Switzerland. Because they had defeated the armies of both Burgundy and the Empire, the Swiss infantry had become the terror of Central Europe. The Swiss cantons rented out their soldiers to the princes of Europe. The Swiss fought in a dense phalanx — mostly pikemen supported by halberdiers, crossbow archers, and men swinging six-foot-long two-handed swords. The Swiss phalanx was quickly copied by the infantry of all the continental powers. The Swiss soldiers considered fighting in these many wars their patriotic duty. They brought money to their home cantons. Their motives were not pure patriotism, however. The loot from enemy camps and cities was a powerful inducement, as was their hatred for the Holy Roman Empire (the Swiss heroes, Arnold von Winkler and William Tell, had resisted the Empire).
Usually, the Swiss fought on the side of the French. In 1513, however, the Imperialists outbid the French, and the Schweizer footmen marched with the forces of the Empire to break the siege of Novaro, where a Swiss garrison was holding out against the French. French artillery broke down the walls of Novaro, but the Swiss erected barricades behind the breaches. Then the relieving army swept down on the French, captured 22 French guns and killed all the gunners.
They lost only 400 men in their attack. Two years later, at Maringano, the Swiss didn’t do so well. This time, they did not attack the rear of a besieging army, but charged directly at the front of a heavily fortified French army equipped with 72 field guns. The Swiss did capture part of the French works but had to dig in under heavy fire. The next day, they were forced back by fire from the artillery and the French harquebusiers. Then the French cavalry turned their retreat into a rout. The attack at Marignano was the last time the Swiss fought French troops and their artillery before the Swiss Guard was wiped out in the French Revolution.
In 1522, the Swiss were again on the side of the French. Prospero Colonna, a condottiere in the service of the Empire, was besieging Milan. The Swiss were eager to attack. As at Novaro, they would come in behind a besieging army, and their enemy was the hated Imperialists. The French commander, Lautrec, was not so optimistic. It looked as if Colonna had fortified the rear of his army as well as the part facing the city. But the Swiss were so insistent, Lautrec was afraid they’d mutiny if he didn’t let them attack. So on April 27, 1522, he ordered the attack.
Colonna had placed cannons and Spanish arquebusiers and musketeers behind a breastwork that overlooked a sunken road. The Imperial cannons blasted bloody lanes through the Swiss phalanx. A single shot striking that dense mass of humanity could kill up to 30 men. A thousand Swiss were killed before they even reached the sunken road. When the Swiss reached the ditch and leaped into it, four lines of Spanish handgunners firing successive volleys shot them down. A few Swiss climbed over the bodies of their comrades to reach the top of the breastwork, but Imperial pikemen pushed them back. More than 3,000
Swiss were killed. The survivors fled, and, as historian Christopher Duffy puts it, “The bellicose and independent spirit of the Swiss was broken forever.”
Field artillery was improved continuously, well into the 19th century. It became one of the three key elements of warfare and was the key to Napoleon’s victories. For a time, its supremacy was challenged by the high-velocity rifle, but then cannons were given rifling and recoil-absorbing mechanisms, and in World War II, it was still the most lethal of military weapons.
Chapter 15
Power in the Hands: The Matchlock
Soldier firing a matchlock musket.
The first gun small enough to be carried by infantry was far from a decisive weapon. A typical “hand cannon” was a short metal tube fitted to the end of a wooden pole. From a distance, it looked like a short spear. The hand gunner loaded his weapon with gunpowder and a lead ball. He then held the wooden pole with one hand, and with the other he poked a red-hot iron wire into a hole, called a “touch-hole” in the top of the gun. Guidin
g the wire to the touch-hole meant that he was not able to aim. The gun made a bright flash, a terrifying noise, and a lot of smoke. Other than that, it seldom did any damage. There was a good reason why the Arabs and Turks were not interested in guns.
Jump ahead about three centuries: Samuel de Champlain, the French explorer, is asked by some Indians he is visiting (members of the Huron tribe), for help against their enemies, members of the formidable Iroquois confed-eracy. Champlain loads his gun, a long heavy device that bears no resemblance to the early hand cannons, with a charge of powder and three bullets. He joins the army of his new friends, and they confront the Iroquois army. Both armies consist of naked warriors armed with bows and arrows. Two of the Iroquois chiefs advance to challenge the Hurons. One of the chiefs lifts his bow.
Champlain fires.
Both chiefs fall to the ground. The Iroquois flee.
Champlain’s shot, hitting two enemies at once, was probably the best the explorer ever made. It was also one of the most historic in North American history. It started the centuries-long hostility between the Iroquois and the French, a development that had the most profound effect on colonial North America.
A lot of development went into Champlain’s exceptionally lethal weapon.
One of the first was getting rid of the hot wire as a means of ignition. Using wires to fire guns meant that soldiers had to have a fire nearby to keep their wires hot. That was not very convenient in the midst of a battle. Somebody substituted a piece of cord that had been steeped in potassium nitrate and brandy to make it burn slowly and steadily. Its effect was something like the punk used to ignite Fourth of July fireworks. Some fires were still needed in case a match went out, but usually a soldier could reignite his match from another soldier’s.
