Masters of the Battlefield

by Davis, Paul K.

  In the principles of war employed in this work, Nobunaga’s strengths were objective, the offensive, security, and exploitation. From the beginning of his career, Oda Nobunaga set as his political objective the leadership of Japan: “Rule the Empire by Force.” Strategically, he used his central location as a power base to which he would gradually gain land and men until he attracted the attention of the shogun and gained the necessary legitimacy to wage war on other enemies. In battle, the center of gravity for him was always the enemy army, whether in the open as at Okehazama and Nagashino, or in forts as at Mt. Hiei, Osaka, or Nagashima. Nobunaga benefited from the practice of the age of having daimyo lead their own armies, so “cutting off the head of the snake” was always a goal since surrender was not an option for such leaders. Subordinate commanders could become vassals, and he built his army in such a fashion, but rival daimyo (or religious leaders) ultimately would not survive defeat.

  With the exception of taking up the tactical defensive at Shitaragahara, Oda favored the offensive. Although facing an invasion in his opening campaign, he refused to follow the advice of his older subordinates to defend his home castle. Instead, he took the initiative with a smaller force to ambush the Imagawa army at Okehazama. The speed of his reaction to the invasion, the analysis of the Imagawa position, and the fortuitous hailstorm amazed friend and foe alike. It was not, however, a tactic Nobunaga used often. He usually would not attack without a superior force and consistently did so after careful planning.

  Although the battle at Nagashino is famous for Nobunaga’s use of firearms for defense, he introduced the widespread use of both hand-held matchlocks and cannon primarily on the offensive. He defeated the warrior monks in their castles with gunpowder weapons, including seaborne cannon aboard the ships of mercenaries hired for the assaults on Nagashima. Nobunaga’s early victories at Okehazama and Anegawa seem to have had no firearms employed, but the bulk of his campaigns after 1570 have them as an integral part of his army. His campaigns after Okehazama were strategic offensives, and he used this characteristic to his advantage tactically by choosing his battlegrounds when having meeting engagements. This is most apparent at Nagashino.

  Nobunaga’s attention to the principle of security is best seen in two well-recorded instances. When alerted to the Imagawa invasion of his province, he met with his advisors in Kiyosu Castle. As mentioned earlier, his conversations that night consisted of social gossip. Even though this was his first battle and he was but twenty-six years old, Nobunaga knew enough to keep his plans to himself. If any of his less-than-enthusiastic subordinates decided to transfer his loyalty to the stronger invader, he could have taken Imagawa some men but no information.

  At Nagashino, Oda was again holding a council on the night before the battle. One of his younger officers, Sakai Tadatsugu, suggested a sneak attack on the small force besieging the castle. He spoke out of turn and was quickly reprimanded. Turnbull comments, “However, Nobunaga interviewed him in private later, and assured him that he supported the plan. His anger had merely been a camouflage to throw any spies off the scent.”64 Kure also comments on security precautions within the Oda forces that night, asserting that one of the reasons for Katsuyori launching the foolish attack was because Takeda’s ninja scouts had all been killed by the Oda-Tokugawa troops before they could report the layout of the defensive position.65

  Surely the principle of exploitation is the one at which Oda Nobunaga excelled. As noted above, the center of gravity was always the enemy army. Nowhere was this more true than in his battles against the warrior monks. In his battles against rival daimyo, his forces killed large numbers of defeated troops in pursuit, but with the monks it became a matter of massacres. Whether he held a grudge against the Buddhists for their broken promises to keep his father alive or he crushed them with a view to keeping the newly arrived European Christians happy so he could maintain a steady supply of gunpowder, he was intent on wiping them out. In his initial victory at Mt. Hiei, he left few survivors. Turnbull says, “Mount Hiei was virtually undefended except by its warrior monks. The attack had the prospect of being a pushover, but the ruthlessness with which it was pursued sent shock waves through Japan. … The next day Nobunaga sent his gunners out on a hunt for any who had escaped, and the final casualty list probably topped 20,000.”66 At Nagashima in 1574, Oda had another 20,000 monks and local inhabitants surrounded in a temple and fort compound. He refused to negotiate with them as they starved, and finally set fire to the complex and burned them all.

  Following his victory at Nagashino, Nobunaga invaded the province of Echizen, north of Lake Biwa, the home of a large population of Ikkoikki. As in the assault on Mt. Hiei, Nobunaga ordered a sweep through the province, killing anyone his soldiers encountered. They killed untold thousands; while his troops took countless men and women with them as slaves to their respective home provinces, they took no monks prisoner.67 Only at his victory at Osaka Castle, the headquarters of the warrior monks, did Nobunaga show mercy. A long siege finally ended with an appeal for clemency by the emperor. Oda had arranged for the imperial letter to be sent in order to bring the battle to an end, but he honored the surrender agreement. He burned the buildings, but killed no more monks.

  It is as an innovator that Oda Nobunaga stands out in Japanese military history. Like other commanders discussed in this work, he saw the technological wave of the future, and he rode that wave to both military and political victory. By creating larger standing armies of peasant warriors to supplement the traditional samurai, and by using that increased manpower to implement massed firepower, he was key to the decline of cavalry in Japan. A similar decline had been taking place in Europe for a century thanks to archers, pikes, and guns, but it came about much more rapidly in Japan because of the tactics Nobunaga implemented. Though remembered as ruthless and dispassionate, Nobunaga remains a critical figure in the formation of the Japanese military and the ultimate unification of Japan.

  11

  Gustavus Adolphus (1594–1632)

  King of Sweden

  While the world stands, our king, captaine, and master cannot be enough praised.

  —Robert Monro

  GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS’S GRANDFATHER, Gustavus I Vasa, is regarded as the “Father of Sweden.” He expelled Danish invaders from the country and was named king in 1523. Gustavus continued to fight the Danes, as well as the Russians, but on the domestic front he is most important for introducing the Lutheran Church. He ruled until 1560, when he was succeeded by his son Erik. Erik’s eight-year reign, marked by increasing insanity, came to an end when he was deposed by his half-brother John. John was king of Sweden and Finland until his death in 1590; during his reign he fought wars with Denmark and Russia. John’s marriage to a Polish princess made it possible to place his son Sigismund on the throne of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1587. Upon John’s death, Sigismund assumed the kingship of Sweden and Finland as well. He ruled from the Polish capital at Krakow with his uncle Charles as regent in Sweden. Sigismund, raised as a Catholic, had agreed not to interfere with Lutheranism in his home country; Poland was a Catholic nation. Thus, it was Sigismund’s support for the Counter-Reformation that motivated Charles to seize control and have the Riksdag (the Swedish legislature) name him king. A Swedish victory over the Poles at the Battle of Stångebro in 1598 led to Sigismund’s official deposition the following year.1

  Charles’s son Gustavus thus came to be in line for the Swedish throne only after a tumultuous succession process. Charles ruled with the advice and consent of the Riksdag, and during his reign he consolidated Sweden’s borders and its religion. He taught Gustavus the lessons of ruling well and appointed good tutors for his son’s education. Gustavus’s primary tutors were Johan Skytte (“one of contemporary Sweden’s rather sparse intellectual luminaries”)2 and Johan Bure, an expert in runes and Swedish history and myth. Under the direction of these teachers Gustavus became fluent in five languages and did passably well in five others. His teachers saw a young
man grow up with a great appetite for learning, excelling in languages, literature, and science. He became well known for debating nobles and, when his father allowed it, visiting ambassadors and aristocrats. He therefore developed a speaking style that amazed all who came in contact with him; he was regarded as a first-class orator as well as military leader.3 Along with the “book learning,” his father gave him lessons and experience in governing. Charles was often at odds with the Riksdag and could show a strong aggressive streak when opposed. Gustavus learned tenacity from his father, but also learned from observation that in dealing with government, words can sometimes be more effective than actions.

  At fifteen Gustavus grew bored with intellectual pursuits and acted the feckless role of a teen-aged prince. He did, however, show a continual interest in military affairs. He had spent much time among military officers and had received a bit of tutelage from Jakob de la Gardie, who had been in the service of the great Dutch general Maurice of Nassau for some years; from Maurice would come Gustavus’s reforms for the Swedish army. Turning sixteen in December 1610, Gustavus felt himself ready for action, and he asked his father for assignment to the east to fight against the Russians. He was denied, but did not have to wait long. In early 1611 the Riksdag declared him to be of age to fight, and the Danes (and their Norwegian subjects) were invading about the same time. The Danish army under King Christian IV captured the city of Kalmar on Sweden’s southeastern coast and raided across the countryside, capturing some towns and destroying others. In April 1611, Gustavus was knighted and sent to collect troops to fight for the relief of Kalmar. He quickly recaptured the isle of Öeland, directly opposite Kalmar. He also was successful in the destruction of the town of Christianopol (modern Kristianstad) by outfitting his soldiers in his enemy’s traditional clothing—his first use of deception as a combat technique.4 Gustavus launched a surprise night attack and captured the town quickly; he then ordered the population to leave and burned it to the ground. A few other small actions met with success but in the fall of 1611 Charles, who had been in deteriorating health for some time, finally died. At only sixteen, Gustavus now found himself king and commander in chief.

  With two fortress cities in Danish hands, Gustavus broke with contemporary strategic thinking and did not lay siege to either. Instead, he launched an attack into Danish-held territory to the west. It failed, but he launched another, hoping to draw the Danes out of the cities and into the open. They would not comply, however, but instead prepared a naval assault on Stockholm. When Gustavus learned of this, he force-marched his 1,200-man force 240 miles in a week to reach the capital before the attack. There, he put every available man in the city in uniform and awaited the assault. Seeing the large force arrayed against him and not knowing many were civilians, King Christian withdrew. Little more fighting was done and a peace was concluded in 1613. Gustavus negotiated the return of both fortresses, Kalmar and Älvsborg, though he had to buy back the latter. Denmark was out of the way, but Russia and Poland still presented problems.

  Gustavus’s cousin and rival, Sigismund of Poland, refused to discuss a peace treaty but did extend an existing truce for another five years.5 Gustav used the time productively. His first move was to address his remaining rival, Russia. At that time Poland ruled much of northwestern Russia, and the Russian nobles were not happy with Sigismund. They offered the throne of Muscovy to Gustavus’s younger brother, Charles Phillip. Gustavus hesitated, however, and the throne went instead to a Romanov. Gustavus apparently believed that trying to control such a vast area was more than Sweden could handle, or more trouble than it was worth. As Nils Ahnlund, one of Gustavus’s primary biographers, notes, “He had not an atom of confidence in the Russians. He considered that he had a very good notion of their national character, and believed that when dealing with them, even under conditions of peace and friendship, it was essential always ‘to keep the possibility in view of having to fight.’ His policy was innocent of illusions.”6

  Sweden already held outposts on Russia’s Baltic coast (notably Novgorod), and in 1614 Gustavus launched an invasion from there. The primary action was the siege of Pskov, which Gustavus wisely broke off as the winter approached. Little else happened, and a peace treaty was signed in 1617 that gave Sweden control of the entire Russian Baltic coast, and by extension control of all of Russia’s overseas trade. In this brief campaign, Gustavus made two key military decisions. First, he displayed the importance of armies versus positions. He told his second in command, Jakob de la Gardie (his tutor on the Dutch tactics of Maurice), that Novogorod was not to be held to the last man if besieged. The city was valuable for trade, but not as important as an army of veterans. Second, he imposed the strictest discipline on his troops: there was to be absolutely no pillage and rapine. All supplies were bought and paid for from the locals, and any failure to follow those orders merited a death sentence. Such a reputation would serve Gustavus well in the future. With two enemies now at peace and a third under truce, the young king now began to implement the improvements to his army that would take him to his fame.

  Warfare of the Time

  SINCE THE MIDDLE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, the battlefield had been dominated by the pike. The millennium-long ascendancy of cavalry had begun its rapid decline in the face of long-range firepower in the form of English longbows and gunpowder weapons. While they stopped the charges of the heavy cavalry knights of the Middle Ages, the bowmen and gunners needed protection. Ultimately, the bow fell from widespread use in Europe owing to the difficulty in learning to handle the longbow effectively and the relatively short range and slow reloading of the crossbow. The gunpowder weapon that came to the fore was the arquebus. It also had limited range and a slow reloading time, but it was the easiest to teach recruits how to use. Over time the arquebus evolved into a heavier matchlock musket. Essentially a very large arquebus, a matchlock could weigh as much as twenty pounds. It had a bore of twenty millimeters and fired a two-ounce ball, twice the weight of an arquebus shot. One man could operate this gun by use of a separate, forked rest to support the barrel. Its portability, stopping power, and 400-yard range made it so useful that in spite of its inaccuracy musketeers gradually replaced half the arquebusiers in Spanish infantry units, and most European armies took up the musket.7

  That is where the pike came in. Its length kept cavalry at bay while the gunners reloaded. The Swiss had first introduced the massed pike formation reminiscent of the ancient Greek phalanx, but it had been perfected by the Spanish in the form of the tercio. In open terrain, the square of pikemen provided the only place of safety where the infantry gunners might take refuge from the enemy’s heavy cavalry. In turn, the musketeers’ or arquebusiers’ fire could support the pikemen’s defense, and the enemy’s heavy infantry or the attacking heavy cavalry would provide fine targets for arquebus balls.8 The tercio numbered between 1,000 and 3,000 men, depending on the nature of the terrain. The outer ranks wore some armor and were equipped with pikes fourteen feet long. The next ranks inward were unarmored pikemen, and the center was made up of armored men wielding halberds with wooden shafts about six feet long and a metal spearhead with some sort of blade on one side and a hook or spike on the other. Primarily a defensive formation, the tercio also was used on the offense in battles similar to phalanx warfare, pikes against pikes. The tercio took infantry otherwise vulnerable to charges from cavalry and made them a sort of hedgehog, invulnerable and unstoppable. These slow-moving formations would crush anything in their way, unless it was another such massive square, in which case neither side would gain a decisive advantage. The tactics of the period provided no effective means of penetrating this type of defense.9

  The muskets were the longer-range offense and defense. In order to maximize the firepower with slow-loading weapons, the Spanish developed the tactic of the countermarch. The gunners would line up in a file ten or twelve men deep. The man at the front of the file would fire his musket, then turn and march to the rear where he would begin the reloading
process. The second man in line would follow suit, and so forth until the first gunner was once again at the head of the file, reloaded and ready to fire. The musket was slower to reload even than the arquebus and a musketeer could at best fire a shot every ninety seconds, but the range and hitting power (it was able to pierce plate armor at a hundred yards) made up for it.

  When it came to cavalry, the day of the armored knight was gone, and for a time the cavalry reverted to scouting and foraging roles. They began to enjoy something of a resurgence with the development of the wheel-lock pistol, however. The pistol included a steel wheel attached to a spring that the gunner could wind with a wrench and then cock. Then, working on the same principle as a cigarette lighter, when the gunner released the spring, the turning wheel struck flint, sending sparks into the pan, igniting the powder, and thereby firing the gun.10 Although more efficient than the matchlock, it was far more expensive and required a gunsmith to repair the mechanism, whereas a matchlock rarely broke down. For cavalry, however, a matchlock was impossible to use with any degree of effectiveness because it was a two-handed weapon. A wheel-lock could be cocked for later firing and discharged with one hand. A cavalryman would carry two pistols in holsters and a third in a boot and became a force to harass a tercio and potentially cause enough damage to create an opening for charging infantry.

  German mercenary cavalrymen developed the tactics to maximize the effectiveness of the wheel-lock pistol. They wore armor for close-in protection, as well as a helmet. They then charged at a trot in a line of small, dense columns, each several ranks deep, and with intervals of about two horses’ width between files. As they approached a tercio, the front-rank horsemen each emptied their three pistols and then swung away sharply to the rear—a tactic called the caracole.11 Thus, the cavalry developed their own version of the countermarch. This took a lot of practice to do well and could be broken up by a countercharge.