A History of War in 100 Battles

by Richard Overy

  The capture of Constantinople in May 1453 was a shock to Christian Europe, though little had been done to aid the city. Mehmet II began to ponder the possibility of adding Rome to his conquests. The pope warned his Christian flock that Mehmet would not rest until he had ‘imposed the law of the false prophet upon the whole world’. One of the Ottoman sultan’s many expansive titles was indeed ‘world conqueror’. The long road to Rome for the sultan led through the Balkans. In 1454, the Serbian kingdom of George Brankovic was raided, and the following year a full-scale invasion captured southern Serbia and Kosovo. Although George signed a treaty with Mehmet to respect what remained of his kingdom, the sultan returned in 1456 with an army estimated at between 30,000 and 60,000, together with 300 cannon (many which had been used to destroy the walls of Constantinople) and 200 galleys plying along the rivers Sava and Danube. The object of the campaign was the strategic city of Belgrade (Nándorfehérvár in Hungarian) whose capture would open the way to Hungary and the Christian West. He positioned his army and camp on the headland by the city, and at the end of June 1456, began bombarding the walls.

  There were two men intent on halting the Islamic tide. The first was János Hunyadi, a nobleman soldier from Transylvania, who had fought against the Ottomans for twenty years and in 1453 became Captain General of Hungary. Disliked by other Hungarian noblemen for his success, he was left alone to organize a response to the vast Ottoman forces approaching Belgrade. He sent his son László and his brother-in-law Mihály Szilágyi to reinforce the Belgrade garrison, bringing the number up to somewhere between 5,000 and 7,000 men. Meanwhile, Hunyadi recruited soldiers and militia from across central Europe, though the exact number is not known.

  An illustration from 1523, preserved in the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul, shows Sultan Mehmet II’s unsuccessful siege of Belgrade in 1456. The picture shows the sultan charging at the city but in reality it was the defenders who sallied out and charged at the Ottoman army.

  The second man was an elderly Franciscan friar, Giovanni da Capistrano, a fiery preacher and member of the Italian Inquisition, who was sent by the Papacy to raise a crusade. He managed to create a people’s crusade among the peasantry. Many of his followers carried little more than farm implements – a scythe or a pitchfork. They moved towards Belgrade under Capistrano’s command. Estimates suggest that Hunyadi and Capistrano between them mustered 40,000 irregular and modestly armed fighters, though the real state and size of the army is open to conjecture.

  The siege began on 4 July. Like the siege of Constantinople, the Ottomans hoped to make breaches in the walls large enough to allow the attacking troops to push through into the city. Belgrade was modelled on Byzantine and Arab castles and was among the best fortified positions in Europe. The stout walls guarded three lines of defence, with the inner castle the toughest part of the structure. Hunyadi understood Mehmet’s methods well; he had visited the Ottoman camp in 1453 during the earlier siege, where it was said that a Hungarian had given the sultan advice on how to make the bombardment more effective. The walls of Belgrade withstood a great deal, but by the time Hunyadi arrived downriver with a fleet of 200 assorted vessels, the first breaches were opening up. His ships scattered the Ottoman river blockade, capturing and sinking more than twenty galleys, and he was able to bring supplies, food and thousands more men into the city. A week later, Mehmet judged that the time had come to take the city by assault.

  On the night of 21 July, thousands of the elite janissaries forced their way through breaches in one of the walls and into the port area and the upper town. While veteran troops with Szilágyi held off furious attacks on the remaining outer walls, Hunyadi ordered his men to throw pieces of wood and other material covered with tar into the streets and there to set fire to them. Soon a sheet of flame separated the janissaries from the rest of the troops behind. The trapped men were slaughtered and the rest of the Ottoman attackers withdrew.

  What followed next is not entirely clear, but a number of Capistrano’s crusading peasants sallied out and attacked the Ottoman camp. The friar, though now seventy years of age, led 2,000 of them across the River Sava and into the rear of the Ottoman lines. Seeing the raid grow in size, Hunyadi had little alternative but to order a general attack. His men charged the Ottoman line of cannon and then fell on the main body. So surprised were the Ottomans at the audacity of the assault that they broke. The remaining janissaries defending Mehmet were beaten back and the sultan was hit by an arrow in the thigh. Hunyadi managed to get the scattered garrison back together and ordered them to stay in the fortress and expect a return of the Ottoman army. But Mehmet had had enough. His army returned to Constantinople through Serbia, ravaging the countryside as it went.

  The victory at Belgrade was unexpected, for the advantage had lain with Mehmet, but the victory proved to be a hollow one. Bubonic plague broke out in the Christian camp and Hunyadi died on 11 August, Capistrano on 23 October (later to be canonized). The Ottomans returned three years later and although Belgrade was held by the Hungarians until 1521, the rest of Serbia fell to a fresh campaign in summer 1459, to remain a vassal of the Ottoman sultans until the nineteenth century. The victory did, nonetheless, slow the Ottoman advance through Europe, which had seemed irresistible on account of the size, wealth and cruel fighting traditions of the sultanate. Not for nothing did Callixtus order the bells to be rung.

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  No. 25 BATTLE OF PLASSEY

  22–23 June 1757

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  Perhaps the most significant battle to take place on Indian soil in the modern age was the encounter near the Bengali village of Plassey (more properly Palasi) between the huge army of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daula, and a small force of European and Indian troops commanded by Colonel Robert Clive of the British East India Company. On paper it looked as though Clive’s forces would be annihilated. Clever deployment and guileful diplomacy between them secured a victory by a force of 784 European soldiers and 2,100 Indian soldiers, or ‘sepoys’, against a Bengali army estimated at approximately 50,000.

  The background to the final encounter at Palasi (the ‘place of the Palas trees’) was complex in the extreme. The Indian Mughal Empire was in the throes of dissolution, and European powers vied for the rich trade that access to Indian markets allowed. They established local trading companies and bribed and flattered local rulers to allow them to carry on a commerce that made many French, Dutch and British families rich. In Bengal, the three European states competed with each other to win the support of the nawab (king), who in turn played one off against another to extort what he could from the deals he made. In 1756, Nawab Alivardi Khan died and was succeeded by his rapacious and temperamental great-nephew, Siraj-ud-daula, who, barely twenty, had already established an unenviable reputation for debauchery and vice and was little liked by much of Bengal’s elite.

  The new nawab resented the British presence and feared their long-term ambitions. In May 1756, he launched war against the East India Company, sacking its settlement at Kasimbazar and then marching on Calcutta, where the British traders were based. The city was captured by a large army and looted, while the European prisoners were forced into a small airless prison, known in British army slang as the ‘Black Hole’, where 123 out of 146 of them suffocated to death during the night. The atrocity became one of the reasons why the Company brought together an expeditionary force at Madras to sail north, recapture Calcutta and re-establish British trade. The expedition was led by Colonel Robert Clive, supported by a small fleet of ships under command of Vice Admiral Charles Watson. By December 1756, they had arrived in Bengal and within weeks had retaken Calcutta using only 500 British troops and the threat of naval bombardment. In February 1757, Clive, supported by Watson, inflicted a heavy reverse on the nawab’s large army, which forced the Indian ruler to seek a temporary armistice. Meanwhile, war had broken out in Europe between Britain and France, and Clive used this pretext to attack and capture the main French trading base at Chandernagore.
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  A portrait of Robert Clive (1725–74) appeared in the 1832 publication Portraits of Illustrious Personages of Great Britain. Clive masterminded the victory of the East India Company forces at Plassey.

  The arrival of a British force reignited the nawab’s growing hatred for the East India Company, while the French were happy to support him following their defeat. Clive was adept at manipulating the factions at the Bengali court in Murshidabad and promised alliances with wealthy merchants and soldiers if they came over to his side, but it was a risky business in a world where betrayal of trust and pursuit of self-interest assumed Machiavellian proportions. The nawab finally decided to make one last attempt to oust the British before his own political position became too tenuous. In June 1757, Clive led his 784 British troops and 2,100 sepoys, supported by 12 guns and a large stock of supplies, towards the nawab’s army of around 35,000 infantry, 15,000 cavalry and 53 guns (under the command of French artillerymen) which had gathered near the village of Muncarra.

  Clive was anxious about the risk of confronting such a large force, but the disparity was reduced not only by the greater discipline and training of the British troops, but by the fact that two-thirds of the nawab’s army, under command of two conspirators, Mir Jafar and Rai Durlabh, were unlikely to take part in the fight. Clive could not be sure of this, but on 22 June, he finally risked a showdown and moved his small force to occupy a large orchard of mango trees and the small buildings of the village of Palasi, 5 kilometres (3 miles) from the nawab’s camp. That evening both sides moved into position. Clive placed his artillery so that it could engage the French guns in front of him. His forces were dispersed in such a way that they could take the offensive when the moment came. The nawab’s colourful army, accompanied by scarlet-coated elephants and camels, and thousands of horsemen with glittering sabres, prepared for battle – ‘a pompous and formidable appearance’ according to one of Clive’s collaborators.

  A hand-coloured map of the Battle of Plassey shows clearly the great disparity in size between Clive’s forces in the orchard to the left and those of the nawab of Bengal spread out alongside the river. The map appeared in the London Magazine, published c.1760.

  The battle began at 8 a.m. and after four hours of artillery duel, which mortally wounded Siraj-ud-daula’s only reliable general, Mir Madan, a monsoon storm hit the battlefield. The British powder was kept dry under tarpaulins, but the French powder was soaked, and their guns fell silent. When the rain stopped, the Bengali force pulled back to the shelter of a redoubt, but became the victim of a determined British offensive which by 5 p.m. had broken the resistance of those of the nawab’s forces still fighting for him. Siraj-ud-daula fled north to his capital, packed what treasure he could and continued north. He was discovered and surrendered to the conspirators, who had him hacked to death and paraded through the streets of Murshidabad on the back of an elephant. The battle at Palasi resulted in the death of an estimated 500 Indian soldiers, but fewer than 20 from Clive’s diminutive force. Many of the Bengali soldiers held back; they did not want to fight for a ruler widely despised, and with little prospect of loot.

  Though small in losses, the battle had momentous consequences. Clive put Mir Jafar on the throne of Bengal while the East India Company was reinstated as the chief trading power. Clive was rewarded with £234,000 worth of treasure, though the unfortunate Watson died at Calcutta a few weeks after the battle. By the 1760s, victory at Palasi had opened the way to British imperial domination not just of Bengal, but eventually of the whole Indian sub-continent.

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  No. 26 BATTLE OF LEUTHEN

  5 December 1757

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  If Frederick the Great of Prussia needed a battle to complete his impressive curriculum vitae, then Leuthen was certainly it. The battle was fought against all kinds of odds, not least the prospect of a winter confrontation at a time when most armies had abandoned combat for winter quarters. The most impressive odds against Frederick lay with his Austrian enemy. After a number of major victories they had seized back much of Silesia, conquered by Frederick several wars before, in 1740–41. The Austrian army, reinforced by Imperial troops from the smaller German states, outnumbered Frederick’s 39,000 men and 170 guns with an army of 66,000 horse and foot with 210 cannon, a disparity that ought to have made a decisive difference given the way eighteenth-century battles were fought, line against line until the weaker gave way. Frederick risked all on a radical battlefield manoeuvre that succeeded in reducing the odds to a more than even bet, and it is for this reason that Leuthen was remembered long afterwards as Frederick’s apogee.

  The renewed struggle for control of Silesia was part of what became known as the Seven Years War (1756–63). It was in reality a series of different wars between the European powers, which merged into a single conflict. At its heart was the desire of Austria, France and Russia to hold down the emergent state of Prussia under its bellicose monarch, Frederick II. During 1757, the Austrian army, together with its allies, drove Prussian forces back towards the Prussian heartland in northern Germany. Commanded by Prince Charles of Lorraine, who had learned much about Prussian tactics since his defeat at Hohenfriedberg in 1745, and the Habsburg field marshal Leopold Daun, the Austrians set out to achieve a decisive victory over Frederick before the end of the year. On 4 December 1757, they set up camp on either side of the Silesian town of Leuthen (Lutynia in present-day Poland) and awaited the Prussians.

  Rousing his camp at 4 a.m., Frederick led the vanguard forward, followed by columns of infantry flanked by large numbers of cavalrymen, the troops singing hymns as they marched. An enemy outpost was destroyed and Frederick captured several hundred men. When he arrived to view the Austrian camp he saw that it stretched almost 8 kilometres (5 miles) in width, with the left flank unsupported by any natural barriers. Along most of the length of the Austrian line was a shallow ridge that could shield the Prussian army from view. Frederick took a gamble that he could exploit the ridge’s shallow cover to move most of his army in an oblique manoeuvre across the Austrian front in order to make a powerful attack on the exposed enemy flank, so compensating for his lack of numbers. To deceive the enemy as to his intentions, Frederick sent a small force of cavalry and infantry to threaten the other wing of the Austrian army. It was the stronger end of the line, commanded by the Italian cavalry general Lucchese, and Daun and Charles were also positioned there. All three took the bait, Lucchese insisting on reinforcements as the Prussians approached with a deliberate languor.

  Frederick compelled the rest of his army to form into two long snaking columns and march along the face of the enemy, concealed by the landscape. This was an exceptionally complex manoeuvre, requiring a high level of marching discipline to prevent the units from becoming entangled. When Charles and Daun detected the rightwards movement of the Prussian force, they took it for a retreat in the face of overwhelming odds. While the Prussian feint continued to absorb Austrian attention, the rest of the Prussian army arrived in good order at the far left of the enemy line, wheeled left and then, supported by heavy guns and lines of infantry 50 metres apart, sent in three crack infantry battalions to begin the process of unhinging the whole Austrian line. The main attack came at 1 p.m., with only a few hours of daylight left. The Hungarian commander on the Habsburg left flank, General Franz Nádasti, could see Prussian movement along his front and called to Charles for reinforcement, but the Austrian high command ignored him, still sure that an attack would be mounted against their sector. The Prussians stormed forward and the less reliable German Imperial troops panicked and turned, 2,000 of them falling prisoner. The Prussian cavalry under Ziethen drove off the Austrian horse and completed the rout of the infantry. The oblique attack began as a resounding success.

  An illustration from 1897 shows a selection of different Prussian uniforms from the time of Frederick II (the Great). The illustration shows clearly the different weapons available to Frederick’s army and the distinctive uniform of the mounted dragoon
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  Nádasti withdrew towards Leuthen in disarray and Charles and Daun at last realized that they had been tricked. The Austrian line was ordered to swing at right angles to face the onrushing Prussians on either side of Leuthen. The result was a chaos of disorganized units, muddled orders and confused men, forced to march three or four miles to confront an enemy already in command of the field. Resistance in Leuthen was fierce but as dusk fell the town was cleared. Lucchese brought up his fresh cavalry from the right wing and charged forward against the Prussian infantry, not realizing that Prussian cavalry, under Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Driesen, was positioned on his right flank. As they galloped forward, they were hit from the side by the onrushing Prussian horses. The shock was sufficient. Lucchese was killed and his cavalry forced back into the ranks of the defending Austrian foot soldiers. The ensuing panic took root across the remaining Austrian line and the whole front collapsed, fleeing in disorder towards the Silesian capital of Breslau. Frederick pursued the stragglers at the head of a small force gathered from among his exhausted men. Heavy snow began to fall and the pursuit was halted. The reformed infantry lines began to sing the hymn ‘Now Thank We All Our God’ and the song rolled out over the mass of soldiers, to be known thereafter as the ‘Leuthen Chorale’.

  Losses on both sides were high from the savage hand-to-hand fighting. Prussian casualties were 6,000; Austrian and Imperial losses were 10,000 dead and wounded and 12,000 prisoners. The risky battlefield plan tipped the odds and flank encirclement became a speciality of the Prussian and later German armies, and was imitated by Napoleon. The battle opened the way to Prussian reconquest of Silesia but the cost for Prussia, smaller, poorer and less populous than its enemies, was substantial. Frederick had to sustain four more years of bruising conflict, always against the odds, until the Habsburg empress, Maria-Theresa, finally abandoned the attempt to defeat her German rival.