Gorgeous painting, totally true to the spirit of the period. If I have a "quibble," it is with arming the peasants with pikes. I have seen no reference to, or pictorial representation of pike-armed peasants in the Bundschuh movement and Peasants War. (Pikes would have equipped professionals, i.e. Landsknechts). The normal peasant armament would have been agricultural implements turned to martial use (scythes, wood axes, flails, hedging bills, pitchforks, etc.); as well as boar spears, eel spears, light hunting crossbows, and; polearms such as halberds, ahlspiess, morgenstern, spears, ranseurs etc. As time went on, the peasants captured and used handgonnes and heavier crossbows.
Pikes are more than just very long spears - they are quite heavy, unbalanced and unwieldy. (I actually handled one briefly at colonial Jamestown, Virginia, where visitors are invited to join "militia training"). Furthermore, a pike on its own is useless; to be effective they must be deployed by men in multiple ranks and files (each Swiss pike square was 100 men, 10 wide by 10 deep, and squares could be employed behind each other as well as to each side; Landsknecht formations could be 40 - 60 men deep). The pikemen must wield their pikes in unison, adopting the various positions simultaneously as ordered. Failure to do so will disorder the formation (which could be fatal to the unit). Someone who hasn't extensively trained with the pike and in formation is apt to knock into his fellows while going from one position to another, thereby disordering the formation. Unless trained and drilled, pikemen are a greater threat to their fellows than foes.
There were some 16th century forces that learned to use pikes. As an example, during the Nine Years War (1594 - 1603) Tyrone's Irish Rebellion had some native pikes in the latter phase. Never enough (or heavily enough equipped, lacking any armor) to stand up to Elizabethan English pikes, these Irish pikemen were sufficient often to keep English cavalry from charging the Irish calivermen. These pike, were however, trained and drilled by Spanish veterans who had been sent to Ireland as military advisors and trainers.
A less successful example is the Scot's first use of pikes - supplied by their French allies - at the battle of Flodden (1513). The Scots had been using long spears in their schiltron formation and were supplied with 5 1/2 meter pikes shortly before the battle. However, this new weapon required training and discipline, which the Scots didn't have prior to going into action with them for the first time. Advancing over soggy ground, the advancing Scottish pike formations lost the necessary cohesion and momentum, and finding themselves encumbered by the pikes the Scots dropped them and drew their side weapons (swords, dirks) and were subsequently cut down by English bill-armed infantry (more nimble than the pike, and longer than the sword).
03 October 2011, 03:15:41 PM