18. An Upset Victory That Changed Warfare
Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba, El Gran Capitan, solved the problem of firearms’ inordinately long reload times at the Battle of Cerignola in 1503. There, he made liberal use of the arquebus – an early long-barreled firearm – and arquebusiers. In that engagement, de Cordoba led an army of 6300 men, whose numbers included 1000 arquebusiers and 20 canons. They faced a French army of 9000 men, mostly heavy cavalry and elite Swiss pikemen, supported by 40 canons. De Cordoba deployed his arquebusiers in a defensive position behind a ditch and field fortifications. He then waited for the French to attack, and they obliged.
From behind his fortifications, the Spanish general won an upset victory when his arquebusiers shot the attackers to pieces. Battlefields were dominated by firearms-bearing infantry from then on. De Cordoba furthered that revolution with the invention of formations that allowed infantry equipped with firearms to operate without the benefit of fortifications. The result was the Tercio, a formation that combined pikemen with arquebusiers. That allowed the latter to shelter behind the pikes of the former while they reloaded their firearms. Spanish infantry in the Tercio formation went on to dominate European battlefields for the next century.
