A Brief Overview of the Pike and Shot Era Warfare

How wars were fought in Europe between 1500 and 1700.

I would like to give a brief overview of this period of European history which lasted from around 1500 to 1700.

It’s a very important yet often overlooked time of history when various European empires were beginning to emerge and fought many wars against each other. While the Early Modern era is often seen in a very positive light due to technological development during this time and the progress that was achieved, this period of European history was also incredibly violent and led to a series of long conflicts all over the continent.

It’s also a very interesting period of warfare to study since it was a transitional period in which gunpowder weapons were becoming crucial but not always powerful enough to decide battles on their own.

As new technologies were emerging, warfare had to adapt fast, forcing the rulers and their commanders to develop new strategies and constantly evolve. It was a period of many brilliant generals and clever minds, a time when many military manuals were produced and studied all over Europe, and when everyone was trying to gain an advantage by trying something different.

It was also a period of many social and political changes, a weird mix of medieval and modern attitudes in terms of how the state and society functioned. We see the emergence of increasingly more centralized states yet the old medieval aristocratic families were still ruling the continent, and many old traditions remained. And nowhere was this mix of medieval and modern more apparent than in warfare where we see the likes of cuirassiers, heavily armored cavalry which resembled medieval knights but wielded pistols, dominating the battlefields.

In this post I will briefly go through the evolution of warfare in that period and mention the major conflicts that were fought and how these conflicts shaped warfare.

The birth of pike and shot tactics

The name pike and shot reveals what the basic tactical foundation of this period was. A mixture of infantry armed with pikes and gunpowder firearms.

This type of warfare first truly emerged during the Italian Wars (1494-1559). These wars began with the French invasion of Italy in 1494. The army of France was the most powerful in Christian Europe at the time and consisted of the most elite types of units available. There was the heavy cavalry of French knights, the gendarmes, combined with Swiss pikemen mercenaries, considered the best infantry in Europe. This combination was supposed to be virtually unbeatable on the battlefield. Furthermore the French brought to Italy a fierce artillery which was able to bring down the old medieval walls. By the end of 15th century, the old fortifications were no match for powerful bombards anymore, and the era of gunpowder weapons had already started.

However gunpowder weapons alone could not win battles. The most formidable and feared units in the French army at the time of invasion of Italy were the already mentioned Swiss mercenaries, who had developed an aura of invincibility over the 15th century, being able to deal with heavy cavalry with their long pikes, while also besting other infantries in melees.

For this reason, we must talk about Swiss pikemen first. The Swiss pikemen are unfortunately often incorrectly compared to an ancient Macedonian phalanx. In reality, the Swiss developed their own system without any inspiration from antiquity and in a very different context. Swiss pikemen functioned very differently than a Macedonian phalanx, for they faced very different types of challenges.

When we talk about Swiss pikemen we’re talking about Swiss pike squares, which included various different types of infantry units, rather than just pikemen as such. Halberds and other weapons for close melee fighting were equally important for their type of warfare. Another important aspect of Swiss pike square was its mobility, the ability to manoeuvre under pressure and defend itself from all sides. This was because the main challenge that the Swiss faced in their military evolution came from heavy cavalry, as their enemies such as the Burgundians depended on armored mounted knights. For this reason the Swiss evolved a perfect system to defend themselves from such threat. They had long pikes to keep the cavalry at bay and to deal with the lances of dismounted knights. And they were able to defend attacks from all sides, so that they wouldn’t get outflanked.

But because the Swiss lacked their own heavy cavalry, they also needed to perfect offensive infantry tactics to bring the war to their enemies and not get picked apart from range. The Swiss could charge in a very disciplined way and often completely overwhelmed their enemies. They developed a fierce reputation and soon became sought after as mercenaries.

Because of the success of Swiss pikemen, others started to imitate them, most notably the German landsknechts who were employed by the Habsburgs but also served as mercenaries in other armies. Pike infantry was proving to be a very effective and versatile type of infantry by the end of 15th century. However the shot element was not really integrated into such warfare yet, so we can’t really speak about pike and shot warfare yet. While both the Swiss and the landsknechts used handgunners, they were in small numbers and their role was more to skirmish than to play a significant role in battles. The Swiss also notoriously didn’t like guns at the time, and preferred halberds as their favorite weapon.

The Swiss and the landsknechts developed a fierce rivalry and hatred between each other and soon faced each other in the Swabian War in 1499 where the Habsburgs, employing the landsknecht mercenaries, invaded the Old Swiss Confederacy. In battles between two such pike formations, a brutal type of warfare known as the “push of pike” or simply “bad war” resulted, with both infantries trying to break the other formation by pushing forward, poking with their pikes and eventually engaging in a close range melee. The battles between the Swiss and the landsknechts were always brutal and they would carry this rivalry to Italy where both served as mercenaries.

A contemporary depiction of a push of pike.

The Italian Wars would have a significant effect on European military tactics and on European political development as a whole. What started as a French invasion to claim the Kingdom of Naples became a long grueling conflict which dragged into a series of wars, and many European powers got involved. It eventually started revolving around the emerging French-Habsburg rivalry. The European states started growing in power and could assemble large armies filled with mercenaries. This resulted in a rapid evolution of military tactics as well. There was a need to combine various different units into a cohesive army, and develop a tactical system that would make the best use of new gunpowder weapons.

The man who should be credited as the inventor of pike and shot warfare is Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba who employed such tactics at the Battle of Cerignola in 1503. In charge of the Spanish army and facing the French with their dreaded combination of mercenary Swiss pikemen and armored knights, Córdoba adapted a very defensive approach, relying on gunpowder weapons. He counted on his arquebusiers to weaken the enemy cavalry and infantry with gunfire from arquebuses. But to do this, he had to figure out a way to protect them. And this is how he came up with the pike and shot system, arranging his units in coronelias where the arquebusiers were protected by the landsknecht pikemen he had hired as mercenaries, putting the “shot” units close to pike squares into which they could retreat once the enemy cavalry was close, thus creating pike and shot tactics. In such system, he could also make use of Spanish swordsmen, who could join the melee fighting from close range when their pike squares would clash with the enemy’s, and be protected by pikes from cavalry when needed as well.

This was basically a predecessor to the famed Spanish “tercio” formations where these three types of infantry units - the arquebusiers, the pikemen and the swordsmen - worked together as one. Córdoba also used earthworks and had his army dig trenches. He placed his artillery in front of infantry and behind the trenches.

This was the true birth of the pike and shot tactics. A new type of warfare emerged.

A pike and shot formation.

In this formation, Córdoba’s army was ready to anticipate the onslaught of French cavalry and Swiss pikemen. The artillery and arquebusiers inflicted huge casualties on the incoming enemy who then also had to face earthworks before clashing with pikemen. This system not only nullified the enemy heavy cavalry, but also proved to be effective against the feared Swiss pikemen, who ended up being flanked by arqubusiers and shredded by arquebus fire while they tried to engage Córdoba’s pikemen. The result was such that Córdoba’s 6000 strong army was able to defeat the larger French army of 9000 men.

This battle not only revealed the effectiveness of pike and shot tactics but also how lethal warfare had become with development of increasingly more powerful firearms. Almost half of the French army died that day.

Many more gruesome battles followed in the Italian Wars with similarly high casualty rates. The pike and shot tactics were soon studied and copied all over Europe and became the norm for infantry.

The Italian Wars not only introduced a new type of warfare but also a new type of political approach to conflict in Europe. The growing might of France and the Habsburg Empire, combined with the rise of Protestantism, saw European Christendom falling apart, divided into various coalitions which were formed to secure a balance of power on the continent. Catholic France allying with the Muslim Ottomans and various Protestant princes is the best example of that, but also large alliances during the Italian Wars which eventually saw almost entire Western Europe dragged into the conflict. This signaled the beginning of an era of long wars between various alliances.

The Italian Wars of 1494-1559 therefore proved to be just the first of many similar long complex conflicts fought in Early Modern Europe. The other major pike and shot conflicts that followed were the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598), the Dutch Revolt (1568-1648), the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639-1653), as well as many other conflicts between neighboring European powers, and wars in Eastern Europe, such as the series of wars between Sweden and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. There were of course also constant wars with the Ottoman Empire through this entire period, but I’m going to focus on internal European conflicts here, as they were the most relevant to pike and shot warfare evolution.

The evolution of pike and shot tactics through various conflicts

The Spanish tercios were seen as almost invincible by the second half of the 16th century. But they would face numerous challenges in the 17th century.

The important thing to understand is that pike and shot tactics did not revolve only around infantry. Cavalry was still extremely important, and various cavalry tactics began to emerge to adapt to gunpowder weapons.

This development was already visible in the Italian Wars where light cavalry mercenaries from the Balkans, the stradioti, proved to be very useful. The pike and shot era would see an emergence of light cavalry in Western Europe. But the traditional heavy cavalry was still relevant as well.

People often overrate the significance of “infantry revolution”. While pikemen proved to be an effective solution against cavalry in many cases, it was not always the case. At battles such as Ceresole in 1544, Dreux in 1562 and Gembloux in 1578, cavalry was able to successfully rout large number of pike and shot infantry. It was the quality of pikemen that mattered and elite pikemen such as the Swiss, the landsknechts and the Spanish tercios were in short supply. Cavalry continued to represent a constant threat throughout the Early Modern era, and was just as feared as it was in the Middle Ages.

By the end of the 16th century, three types of cavalry dominated. The lancers, who still used lances in the manner of medieval knights, the cuirassiers, who were heavily armored and used pistols, and the harquebusiers who were lightly armored and used carbines.

Another development were the trace italienne or “star fort” fortifications which were specifically designed to defend against artillery. This led to many long sieges. The Dutch Revolt or the Eighty Years’ War, fought in the Low Countries, would become especially famous for many grueling sieges.

The Eighty Years’ War would also lead to many important military developments in the beginning of 17th century. In this war the Dutch faced the might of the Spanish empire and the elite tercio infantry. The tercios were seen as almost invincible on open battlefield and excelled in melees with other infantries. This forced the Dutch to start developing tactics that could counter the tercios.

This led to a new evolution in pike and shot tactics and the man responsible was Maurice of Nassau, a brilliant commander and tactical innovator who led the Dutch to victory over the Spanish at the Battle of Nieuwpoort in 1600. Nassau was aware that the key to beating the Spanish tercios was using smaller more mobile units that would rely on the shot element of the pike and shot warfare. This followed the general trends in infantry tactics at the time as the ratio of pikemen and shot units began to change in favor of the latter. The ratio used to be around 70% of pikemen to 30% of shooters, but by 1600 the armies already started adopting a 50-50 ratio. Development of better firearms such as increasingly more powerful muskets increased the importance of shot units. The Dutch started using shallower formations with more musketeers, bringing more of them into a firing line.

The Dutch pike and shot infantry. The ratio between pikemen and musketeers was around 1:1.

But just using more musketeers to deal with the Spanish pikemen was not enough, as the Spanish had excellent musketeers as well. Nassau figured out that the Dutch army needed to implement an entire system that would involve cavalry support to provide protection to infantry, and practiced formations that would assure mutual support. He also realized the importance of drills. In this way he set the foundations of how modern armies would operate. He specifically drilled his musketeers to perfect the counter-march to enable them to fire successively and keep the Spanish under constant fire.

Another important aspect of the Eighty Years’ War was that it required both the Spanish and the Dutch to maintain permanent armies, which led to increased professionalization. This was in contrast to earlier conflicts like the Italian Wars, where armies were raised on a campaign-to-campaign basis. The Spanish Army of Flanders and the Dutch States Army cost their respective governments a lot of money, but they also provided an opportunity to drill the troops away from campaigns. Both of these armies also had mercenaries from all over Europe fighting in them. The tactics used by these armies spread elsewhere and the “Dutch model” developed by Nassau would become very popular among other Protestant powers in Europe, who would develop it further.

In this way, the Eighty Years’ War was crucial for further development of pike and shot tactics and military evolution in Europe.

Another trend that became very apparent by 1600 was the abandonment of various “medieval” types of units which required a lot of skill and training, such as sword and buckler men, longbowmen and lancers. These were becoming practically entirely replaced by troops that were easier to train. Pikemen were becoming a merely defensive unit and cavalry became dominated by cuirassiers and harquebusiers. The heavily armored cuirassiers with pistols could be trained in just few months, as opposed to lancers who needed much more training to be effective. The Dutch system preferred troops that were easier to train and were drilled to fight in a system which became more important than individual skills. Warfare was becoming less elitist and more about numbers and resources.

But like many times in history, new things were not always better in every situation. This Dutch system showed its deficiencies when adopted by the Swedes to fight the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The elite Polish and Lithuanian hussars were able to inflict a devastating defeat on the Swedes at Kircholm in 1605. By using too few pikemen, the Swedes weakened their defense against cavalry, and were destroyed by hussars who were in many ways a remnant of old medieval cavalry, and used lances and sabres. This forced the Swedes to adapt their tactics and they eventually came out of this stronger. They reformed their cavalry to be able to deal with such treats, which would benefit them greatly in the upcoming Thirty Years’ War.

The pike and shot era was essentially a constant struggle between new and old ideas, and there was a constant need to adapt and learn from mistakes.

The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) would provide another big stage for tactical development. The Dutch system was further evolved by the Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus, but the old tercio system also achieved some crucial victories. It was another big conflict which eventually involved almost all major European powers. The armies would copy from each other and adapt the tactics. The war saw many brilliant commanders rising through the ranks, sometimes from very humble origins. As the war went on, cavalry became even more crucial. The improvements in artillery meant that large blocks of pikemen were getting increasingly exposed in open battles, and cavalry provided the needed mobility on the battlefield.

The Thirty Years’ War is also remembered as one of the biggest tragedies in history of Europe, for it has claimed so many lives not only through fighting but mostly through hunger and diseases, with some parts of Germany losing more than 70% of population.

The main reason for that is that armies still relied on mercenaries, and the states in Europe struggled to find resources to fund war efforts and to establish logistics for the army. This meant that the armies had to basically feed themselves, or as the popular saying went, “war feeds war”. Thirty Years’ War commanders like Wallenstein used a system of “contributions” which was basically a systematic extortion of various lands where the war was fought to sustain the mercenary armies, as summed up by the motto “when the army marches, the enemy pays.” This allowed large armies to be raised and sustained, but it also led to impoverishment and starvation in the extorted and plundered lands.

This was a problem that was repeating itself through the entire pike and shot era. Even though various European empires were slowly emerging as global superpowers, they were still very limited in their state power and ability to maximize the revenues. These wars were a huge financial strain. Mercenaries were often not paid regularly, and they resorted to plundering the local population. They also sometimes simply needed to find food to survive. In the pike and shot wars, there were hardly any rules. Local population was often left at the mercy of marauding armies or bands of mercenaries.

For this reason I always point out that the brutality of pike and shot era wars cannot be underestated. It was not just that this type of fighting was brutal, but there was also the suffering these wars brought to local population. On top of all the pillaging and starvation you also need to take into account the recurring plagues which were spread by soldiers. For example the War of the Mantuan Succession (1628-1631), which started as an obscure local conflict, brought a deadly plague to Italy which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths in northern Italy.

While there were many beautiful things and technological advances that were made in this period, it was also a very brutal time full of conflicts and terrible violence!

I think this will be enough for this short introduction to the pike and shot period, for I have, although very briefly, covered the most important conflicts and the manner in which they were fought.

I would just like to end with explaining how the pike and shot era ended. By the end of the Nine Years’ War (1688-1697), pikes ceased being useful enough in deterring cavalry attacks and could no longer justify the decrease in firepower by using pikemen instead of arming those men with muskets as well. Muskets became powerful enough that, with the help of recently invented socket bayonets, musketeers could repulse cavalry more effectively than pikemen, as proved in the Battle of Fleurus in 1690. This led to abandonment of pikemen in almost all European armies by 1700. While pikes were still used in the Northern War by the Swedes and Russians, we can generally count the year 1700 as the end of the pike and shot era.