Battle of Cerignola

Battle of Cerignola
Part of the Second Italian War
Date April 28, 1503 Location Cerignola (present-day Italy) Result Decisive Spanish victory
Belligerents
Spain	France
Commanders and leaders
Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba	Duke of Nemours †
Strength
8,000 infantry 20 guns	32,000 infantry and cavalry 40 guns
Casualties and losses
100 casualties	4,000 dead or wounded

The Battle of Cerignola was fought on April 28, 1503, between Spanish and French armies, in Cerignola, near Bari in Southern Italy. It is noted as the first battle in history won by gunpowder small arms.

Spanish forces, under Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, formed by 8,000 men, with more than 1,000 arquebusiers, and 20 cannon, defeated the French who had 32,000 men; mainly heavy cavalry and Swiss mercenary pikemen, with about 40 cannon, and led by Louis d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, who was killed (making him probably the first general killed in action by musketry).

The end of the battle saw the first time a "call to prayer" (toque de oracion) was issued, a practice that was later adopted by most Western armies, when the Great Captain, upon seeing the fields full of French bodies (who, like the Spaniards, were Christian), ordered three long tones to be played and his troops to pray for all the fallen. Cerignola marks the beginning of the hegemony of Spain in the European battlefields until the defeat of Rocroi in 1643.

Preparations

Despite being outnumbered 4:1, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, called "El Gran Capitán" (The Great Captain), had many strategic advantages: he had occupied the heights of Cerignola, and entrenched his soldiers with walls, trenches and stakes. His artillery was better placed than the French artillery. Most of his forces were infantry, which he had formed into new units called "Coronelías," that were the seed of the later Tercios. They were armed with a mix of pikes, arquebuses and swords. This type of formation had revolutionized the Spanish army, which like the French, had also centred upon cavalry from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries, in the battles of the Reconquista against the Muslims in Spain.

This army faced a professional French army based on the Ordonnance reforms, relying on the heavily-armoured cavalry of the Compagnies d'ordonnance and mercenary Swiss pikemen; however, at the same time, this army had more artillery than the Spanish. This paradox would be constant in the French armies through the first half of the sixteenth century.

The Battle

The battle began with two charges by the French cavalry, against the centre of the Spanish army, but was dispersed by heavy artillery fire on both occasions. The next assault tried to force the right flank, but it was broken by a storm of fire from the Spanish arquebusiers, which killed the Duke of Nemours. With the Swiss commander, Chandieu, taking charge, the Swiss infantry attacked with the cavalry, but this attempt was again driven back by the arquebusiers, during which Chandieu also died. This forced the French army to retire in disorder, the moment in which Spanish infantry countered. The result was a total French defeat.

It is considered to be the first battle in history won by firearms.

References

• Losada, Juan Carlos (2006). Batallas Decisivas de la Historia de España. Punto de Lectura. ISBN 978-84-663-1484-8
• Batista González, Juan (2007). España Estratégica. Guerra y Diplomacia en la Historia de España. Sílex. ISBN 978-84-7737-183-0