The battle of Pavia 1525

 

Ikki - In some respects I am inclined to agree, but many areas of the Holy Roman Empire in Italy and even in it's heartlands were not really under it's control in any meaningful sense - neither was northern Italy. The destruction of Papal power from 1378 - 1417 in the Great Schism meant that Italy was open for invasion from the two main powers of the day - France and the Holy Roman empire. The former, with it's absolutist Valois rule and increasingly large amounts of resources meant that it did, as you said, press quite far into Italy. However, the consolidation of Northern Italy (or at least attempts to do so) meant that many French enterprises in that area were "hare brained" at best, such as Charles VIII's ill-fated 1494 invasion of Italy.

In this sense, I see your point because French defeats in Italy were nothing new, but the significance of Pavia insomuch as the consolidation of Northern Italy into a proper, working part of the Holy Roman empire is large. Regard the Cantons of the Swiss confederation, that were supposed to be under Hapsburg rule, but in actuality were largely independent - the same goes for many of the Northern European areas in the Holy Roman empire and Northern Italy to. Where the "warrior popes" such as Julius II had failed to secure parts of Northern Italy lost in the great Schism, Charles V suceeded, and when the north fell to the likes of the 1529 leauge of Torgau and 1531 Schamalkaldic league, large swathes Northern Italy remained under clear Hapsburg domination until 1796. I am not inclined to over-romanticise battles and ignore the larger conditions that preceeded them, but I do believe that Pavia is for this reason a short-term reason for the Hapsburg domination of Italy - an extremely prominent one.

 

Moreover, it was one of the first examples in Europe of what could be done with firearms and challenged the traditional views of chivarly for once and for all. This is one of the defining moments as far as Western European millitary advancements are concerned.   This is a problem of historiography: the knowledge about the spanish campaigns 1499-1504 have been very poor and historians had tend to put excesive emphasis over Pav�a. Pav�a was only a brilliant and internationally famous confirmation about what happened twenty years before or few years if you count Bicoca. There is another problem, the cavalry and the use of heavy cavalry in the ancient way wasn't stopped there: french religions war and war in the Sacred Empire or the first stages of the Flanders War are examples (see for example Battle of Muhlberg, Dreux or Jemmingen). The cavalry roll changed gradually and Pav�a althought shine don't mean an special echelon in that change.

 

Other examples such as the 1516 battle of Chandiran with the Ottoman empire under Selim "the Grim" and the Safavids under Shah Is'mail were also instrumental in developing the military capacity of the firearm on the field of battle, but in Western Europe - which is what we are concerned with here - this is the most prominent example. The examples that you give are not decisive in the large role of things, as for example, in the 1547 battle of Muhlberg (which anyway is two decades after the battle we are speaking about - and so is not relevant as a conflicting battle for "most decisive and early use of firearms") failed to stop the spread of Lutheranism fully, and Charles V failed to make good his victory by enforcing the 2nd Diet of Augsburg which only angered the Schmalkaldic league and made them seek aid from Valois France in the 1555 treaty of Chambourd. Moreover, the role of cavalry is not what we are speaking about - Charles used a similar tactic at Muhlberg as he did at Pavia, except at Pavia the French used the same medieval tactics with armoured knights that they had been using for centuries (they obviously had not learnt their lesson from the hundred years' war!). Again, the battle of Dreux is 1562 and is therefore not reflective of the significance of the development of the musket and tactical advantages of artillery of which we are speaking. Again, Jemmingen is 1568 and my explanation towards this is the same as my one above concerning the battle of Dreux. Both of these battles do display a completely different approach towards warfare, granted, but how on earth these are supposed to be rivals to Pavia, which was around 20-30 years earlier, I do not see. Earlier wars that incorporated firearms such the c1422 - 1434 Hussite wars and the Hundred years' war (in particular Crecy in 1346) did not deploy firearms in any meaningful capacity and when they were used, they had little effect on the grand scale of the campaign.

 

Your point about the Spanish campaigns is taken, but essentially the fate of Italy was still very much intertwined with that of the Holy Roman empire and France. Let us not forget that the Holy Roman empire was initially formed under Otto the great in 963, but that it's origins date back to the Carolingian Frankish kingdom under Charlemane the great in the 840's, and the pope crowned him "Emperor of the Holy Romans" because of his role in defending Rome against barbarian invasions. Moreover, throughout the medieval period and increasingly into the early modenr period, the Holy Roman empire was the main basis for economic support of the pope. Therefore, it is only natural when we consider the general march of history that the Hapsburg/Holy Roman empire - since 1516 and 1519 the largest empire in Europe - would have had the general position to secure Northern Italy at this point rather than in the ill-documented Spanish campaigns. But as you say, more research is needed in this field.

 

Moreover, it culminated in the humiliating treaty of Madrid.   Humiliating was the OWNED of Charles V when Francis I arrived to France.

 

Yes, but my point in this case is that the Spanish Torcio managed to blast away his bodyguard - the longer term political implications were not due to the outcome of the battle - it was arguably Charles' negligence and other preoccupations that caused this massive diplomatic slip.

 

My analysis may be way off, but Pavia is hardly an overrated battle.   But because the arguments i have said i can't consider Pav�a as a specially crucial battle. It's possible in certain manner that i am very disappointed by the lost chance: in front of the Battle of Poitiers in the HYW, Pav�a palished. And i admit that i don't like this battle, in a military sense.

 

I would agree that Pointiers is also a largely important battle in it's own context and it's own campaign - it to humilated and broke France for a time, and captured the king in 1356; John II. However, because it was a repeat in tactical significance of Crecy in 1346, and like the latter and Pavia did overshadow the traditional role of cavalry with men at arms, missile troops and tactical arrangement, the development of artillery to a large degree is undoubtedly more prominent in the larger scale of military history. Yes, these battles provided the basis for the tactics that would be used in some respects in battles such as Pavia, Frankhausen, Muhlberg etc, but also, they are some 200 years before are clearly in a medieval world, whereas the political stage in this battle is clearly early modern, making comparison difficult. Francis Bacon in 1622 stated that the three most important inventions of his time were gunpowder, the compass and printing and frankly I'm inclined to agree with him in this case in relation to the first.