20. Swiss and German Mercenaries Had a Serious Grudge Against Each Other
The German Landsknechts began as a poor man’s version of the feared Swiss pikemen, but eventually displaced the Swiss as Europe’s supreme mercenary forces. The first Landsknecht units were formed in 1487, when Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I directed a Swabian commander, Georg von Frundsberg, to form mercenary regiments. Frundsberg, who came to be known as the “father of the Landsknechts”, consciously modeled the new units on the Swiss pikemen, and hired Swiss instructors to train them. Landsknecht used pikemen like the Swiss, but flanked them with supporting troops armed with firearms, halberds, and swords. By then, the Swiss formation and tactics, dependent on a tightly packed phalanx of pikemen and close hand-to-hand combat, were becoming outdated and increasingly vulnerable to firearms and artillery.
The Landsknecht, in pike blocks of about 200 men that were lighter, smaller, and thus more maneuverable than their Swiss counterparts, were intended to fight the Swiss after their ranks had been thinned by arquebuses and cannons. When Landsknecht and Swiss pikemen met, it was like fighting dogs in a pit: no quarter was asked or given, in what was referred to as schlechten krieg, or “bad war”. The Landsknechts’ tactical innovations, fighting while supported by firearms, gave them an edge, and at the Battle of Marignano in 1515, they beat the Swiss. The Landsknechts thus earned a terrifying reputation on the battlefield, but it was eclipsed by an even more terrifying reputation for their conduct off the battlefield. Landsknechts were notoriously undisciplined and had no compunctions about going on rampages and taking what they were owed by force if they were not paid on time.
