War of the League of Cambrai
The War of the League of Cambrai (1508–1516), also known as the War of the Holy League and by several other names[1], was a conflict in the Italian Wars fought by a number of major European powers: France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, the Papal States, and the Republic of Venice. These were joined, at times, by England, Scotland, the Duchy of Milan, Florence, the Duchy of Ferrara, and the Swiss.
The war was initially intended by Pope Julius II and Emperor Maximilian I as a way to curb Venetian influence in northern Italy; to this end, they created the League of Cambrai, an alliance to seize Venice's Italian territories. Disagreements between Julius and Louis XII of France caused the League to break apart by 1509 and led to seven years of changing alliances among the powers involved as the war became a general struggle for the control of Italy. The Treaty of Noyon and Treaty of Brussels, which ended the war in 1516, confirmed French control over Milan, but failed to result in any significant change in territory for the other participants.
Prelude
In the aftermath of the First Italian War, Cesare Borgia, acting with the support of Pope Alexander VI, established Papal control over Bologna and the other cities of the northern Romagna by expelling the Bentivoglio family, which had ruled the region. When Alexander's death in August 1503 left Borgia without a patron, several of the cities revolted against him, and, in an effort to secure troops for their defense, offered to submit to the Republic of Venice, which promptly accepted the offer.
Alexander's successor, Pope Julius II, had Borgia arrested and imprisoned; he then demanded that the cities of the Romagna be returned to the Papacy. Venice offered to pay Julius a yearly tribute, and to acknowledge his sovereignity over the territory in question, but refused to surrender the cities themselves. Julius then encouraged Emperor Maximilian to attack the Republic; Maximilian, seeking to restore the Veneto to direct Imperial control, obliged. An Imperial army marched on Vicenza in February 1508, but was defeated by Venetian mercenaries. A second assault several weeks later was similarly turned back, and the Venetians proceeded to seize Trieste.
League of Cambrai (1508–1510)
Julius and Maximilian, humiliated by the failure of the invasion, and determined to regain the territory they had lost to the Republic, turned to Louis XII, who, having been left in posession of Milan after the Second Italian War, was in a position to attack Venice, with an offer of alliance. On December 10, 1508, Julius, Maximilian, Louis, and Ferdinand II of Aragon signed the League of Cambrai against the Republic of Venice. The agreement provided for the complete dismemberment of Venice's territory in Italy and for its partition among the signatories: Maximilian would receive Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Istria, France would annex Bergamo and Cremona to its Milanese possessions, Ferdinand would seize Otranto, and the remainder, including the Romagna, would be added to the Papal States.
On April 15, 1509, Louis left Milan at the head of a French army and moved rapidly into Venetian territory. To oppose his advance, Venice had raised a condottiere army under the command of the Orsini cousins—Bartolomeo d'Alviano and Nicolo di Pitigliano—but had failed to make clear which of the two was to have overall command. Consequently, when Louis crossed the Adda River in early May and Alviano advanced to meet him, Pitigliano, believing it best to avoid a pitched battle, moved away to the south. On May 14, Alviano confronted Louis at the Battle of Agnadello; outnumbered by the French, he sent several requests for reinforcements to Pitigliano. When the latter refused to respond and continued his march away from the battle, Alviano's army was surronded and routed by the French; Pitigliano managed to avoid encountering Louis, but his mercenary troops, hearing of Alviano's defeat, had deserted in large numbers by the next morning, forcing him to retreat to Treviso with the remnants of the Venetian army. Louis then proceeded to occupy Venetian territory as far east as Brescia without encountering any significant resistance.
The Venetian collapse was complete. The major cities that had not been occupied by the French—Padua, Verona, Vicenza—were left undefended by Pitigliano's withdrawal, and quickly surrendered to Maximilian when parties of Imperial troops arrived in the Veneto. The Imperial administration, however, quickly proved unpopular, and by mid-July the citizens of Padua, aided by Venetian cavalry under Andrea Gritti, had revolted; the landsknechts garisoning the city were too few in number to mount effective resistance, and on July 17 Padua was restored to Venetian control.
The revolt finally pushed Maximilian into action. In early August, a massive Imperial army, accompanied by bodies of French and Spanish troops, set out from Trento into the Veneto. Due to a lack of horses, as well as general disorganization, Maximilian's forces would not reach Padua until September, allowing Pitigliano to concentrate such troops as were still available to him in the city. The siege of Padua began on September 15; although French and Imperial artillery successfuly breached Padua's walls, the defenders managed to hold the city; Maximilian, growing impatient, lifted the siege on September 30 and withdrew to Tyrol with the main part of his army.
In mid-November Pitigliano returned to the offensive, launching an attack against the Duchy of Ferrara, which had joined the League of Cambrai several months prior; Venetian troops captured Vicenza, Verona, and Este, defeating the Papal army under Francesco II of Gonzaga in the process. A river attack against Ferrara itself, however, failed when the Venetian fleet was sunk by Ferrarese artillery; and a French advance forced Pitigliano to withdraw to Padua.
In light of this, the Senate decided to send an embassy to Julius in order to negotiate a settlement. The terms insisted on by the Pope were harsh. The Republic lost her traditional power to appoint bishops as well as all jurisdiction over Papal subjects in Venetian territory. The Romagnan cities that had prompted the war were returned to Julius, and Venice was to pay reparations to cover his expenses in capturing them. The Senate argued over the terms for two months, but finally accepted them on February 24, 1510; the Council of Ten, however, privately resolved that the terms had been accepted under duress and were therefore invalid, and that Venice should violate them at the earliest opportunity.
This reconciliation between Venice and the Pope did not stop the French, however, who marched on Vicenza, and captured it on May 24, 1510. Venice garrisoned Padua for an expected attack by a combined Franco-Imperial army. Maximilian, however, failed to appear, and the Louis, more concerned by the death of his advisor, the Cardinal d'Amboise, abandoned his plans for a siege.
Veneto-Papal alliance (1510–1511)
Julius, meanwhile, had become increasingly concerned by the growing French presence in Italy; more specifically, he had formulated plans to seize the Duchy of Ferrara and add it to the Papal States. To augment his own forces for this venture, he hired an army of Swiss mercenaries for an attack on Milan; in addition, he sent envoys to Venice, inviting the Republic to enter into an alliance with him against France; the Republic quickly accepted this offer.
By July 1510, the new Veneto-Papal alliance was on the offensive. An initial attack on French-occupied Genoa failed, but Venetian troops under Lucio Malvezzo drove the French from Vicenza, and a joint force commanded by the Duke of Urbino captured Modena on August 17. Julius now excommunicated Alfonso d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara, and ordered an attack on the city of Ferrara itself; in anticipation of his victory, the Pope travelled to Bologna, so as to be nearby when the city was taken.
The Swiss army, however, had been paid off by the French on its arrival in Lombardy, and had withdrawn to Switzerland, leaving the French unopposed. Early in October, Charles d'Amboise led the French army south from Milan; his advance on Bologna split the Papal army and by October 18 he was a few miles from Bologna. Julius, meanwhile, had realized that the Bolognese were openly hostile to Papal authority and would give him little aid against the French; left with only a detachement of Venetian cavalry, he was able to do little except excommunicating d'Amboise, who had been convinced by the English ambassador to avoid a direct attack on the Pope and had thus withdrawn to Ferrara.
In December, a newly assembled Papal army beseiged the fortress of Mirandola; d'Amboise, marching to relieve it, fell ill and died, briefly leaving the French in disarray. Alfonso d'Este, however, was able to confront and destroy a Venetian force on the Po River; Julius now abandoned Bologna entirely, leaving it in the hands of Cardinal Alidosi, and returned to Ravenna. Alidosi, however, was no better liked by the Bolognese than Julius had been, and when, on May 23, 1511, another French army under Gian Giacomo Trivulzio arrived at the gates of, they surrendered the city. Julius blamed this defeat on the Duke of Urbino, who then proceeded to kill Alidosi, who had arrived in Ravenna, in front of the Papal guards.
Holy League (1511–1513)
By June 1511, all of the Romagna was in French hands; the Papal army, disorganized and underpaid, was in no condition to prevent Trivulzio from advancing on Ravenna. In response to this debacle, Julius proclaimed a Holy League against France. The new alliance rapidly grew to include not only the Holy Roman Empire and Spain, which deserted the League of Cambrai in expectation of seizing Milan from Louis, but also Henry VIII of England.
In February 1512, Louis appointed his nephew, Gaston de Foix, to command the French forces in Italy. Foix proved more energetic than d'Amboise had been, moving rapidly to check a Spanish army under Ramon de Cardona that was advancing towards Bologna, then returning to Lombardy to sack Brescia, which had rebelled against the French and garrisoned itself with Venetian troops. Attempting to bring the main army of the League to battle, Foix and Alfonso d'Este besieged Ravenna, the last Papal stronghold in the Romagna. Cardona moved to relieve the city in early April and was decisively beaten in the resulting Battle of Ravenna; Foix, however, was killed during the battle, and his successor, La Palisse, unwilling to continue the campaign without orders from Louis, contented himself with thoroughly sacking Ravenna.
By May 1512, the situation had worsened considerably for the French. Another army of 20,000 Swiss mercenaries, hired by Julius, descended on Milan, bringing with them Maximilian Sforza, who was determined to regain control of the Duchy of Milan. La Palisse abandoned the Romagna (where the Duke of Urbino quickly captured Bologna and Parma) and retreated to Lombardy, where he was initially successful in halting the Swiss advance. In June, however, La Palisse was recalled to France to face invasions by Spanish and English armies; by August, the Swiss had combined with the Venetian army and seized control of Milan, where Sforza was proclaimed duke with their support.
In late August, representatives of the major powers of the League met at Mantua to discuss the situation in Italy (particularly the partition of the territories recently acquired from the French). They quickly came to an agreement regarding Florence, which had angered Julius by allowing the Council of Pisa to be convened in its territory. At the Pope's request, Ramon de Cardona's army marched into Tuscany and installed Cardinal Guiliano de' Medici as ruler of Florence.
On the subject of partitioning the territory won from the French, however, fundamental disagreements quickly arose. Julius and the Venetians insisted that Maximilian Sforza be permitted to keep the Duchy of Milan; Maximilian and Ferdinand conspired instead to have one of their cousins installed as duke. The Pope demanded the immediate annexation of the Duchy of Ferrara to the Papal States; Ferdinand objected to this arrangement, wanting an independent Ferrara to counter growing Papal power. Most problematic, however, was the attitude of Maximilian towards Venice. The Emperor refused to surrender any Imperial territory, which in his eyes included most of the Veneto, to the Republic; to this end, he signed a secret agreement with the Pope to exclude Venice entirely from the final partition. When the Republic objected, Julius threatened to reform the League of Cambrai. In response, Venice turned to Louis, signing a treaty at Blois on March 23, 1513 that pledged to divide all of Lombardy between France and the Republic.
Franco-Venetian alliance (1513–1516)
In late May 1513, a French army commanded by by Louis de la Trémoille crossed the Alps and advanced on Milan; at the same time, Bartolomeo d'Alviano and the Venetian army marched west from Padua. The unpopularity of Maximilian Sforza, who was seen by the Milanese as a puppet of his Swiss mercenaries, enabled the French to move rapidly towards Milan. On June 6, 1513, they were confronted by the Swiss near Novara; in the resulting battle, the French were routed despite having superior numbers. Detachements of the Swiss pursued the fleeing French as far as Dijon before being bribed into returning to Italy.
The loss at Novara inaugurated a period of continuous defeat for the French alliance. English troops under Henry VIII attacked La Palisse at Guinegate, scattered the French forces, and proceeded to sack Therouanne. In Navarre, French resistance to Ferdinand collapsed, and he rapdily consolidated his hold over the entire region and moved to support another English offensive in the Guyenne. James IV of Scotland invaded England at the behest of Louis; he failed to draw Henry's attention from France, and his disastrous defeat at the Battle of Flodden Field on September 9, 1513 ended Scotland's involvement in the war.
Meanwhile, Alviano, suddenly left without the expected French support, retreated into the Veneto, followed closely by a Spanish army under Cardona. While the Spanish were prevented from capturing Padua by determined Venetian resistance, they penetrated deep into Venetian territory, and by late September were in sight of Venice itself. Cardona attempted a bombardment of the city that proved largely ineffective; then, having no boats with which to cross the lagoon, turned his army for Lombardy. Alviano, having been reinforced by hundreds of volunteers from Venice, pursued Cardona and confronted him outside Vicenza on October 7. In the resulting Battle of La Motta, the Venetians were decisively defeated, with many prominent noblemen cut down outside the city walls as they attempted to flee.
However, the Holy League failed to follow up on these victories. Cardona and Alviano continued to skirmish for the rest of 1513 and through 1514, fighting several inconclusive battles in the Friuli, but Cardona was unable to make any real progress. Henry VIII, having failed to gain any significant territory, concluded a separate peace with France. Finally, the death of Julius left the Papacy to Pope Leo X, who was rather less concerned with military matters.
The death of Louis XII on January 1, 1515 brought Francis I to the throne. Francis, having assumed the title of Duke of Milan at his coronation, immediately moved to reclaim his holdings in Italy. By July, Francis had assembled an army in the Dauphiné. A combined Swiss and Papal army moved north from Milan to block the Alpine passes against him, but Francis, following the advice of Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, avoided the main passes and marched instead through the valley of the Stura. The French vanguard surprised the Milanese cavalry at Villafranca, capturing Prospero Colonna; Francis himself, with the main body of the French, confronted the Swiss at Marignano on September 13, 1515. The Swiss initially held their ground; however, Francis' superiority in cavalry and artillery, together with the arrival of the Alviano and the Venetians, who had avoided Cardona's army at Verona, on the morning of September 14, led to the defeat of the Swiss and the subsequent expulsion of Maximilian Sforza from Milan.
Aftermath
After the defeat at Marignano, the League no longer possessed the ability or the will to continue the war. Francis advanced on Milan, capturing the city on October 4 and removing Sforza from the throne. In December, he met with Leo X at Bologna; the pope, who had in the meantime been deserted by the remainder of his Swiss mercenaries, surrendered Parma and Piacenza to Francis and Modena to the Duke of Ferrara. In return, Leo received guarantees of French non-interference in a proposed attack on the duchy of Urbino by Papal forces. Finally, the Treaty of Noyon, signed by Francis and Charles V in August 1516, recognized French claims to Milan and Spanish claims to Naples, and removed Spain from the war.
Maximilian held out, making another attempt to invade Lombardy; his army failed to reach Milan before turning back; by December 1516, he had entered into negotiations with Francis. The Treaty of Brussels not only accepted French occupation of Milan, but also surrendered to Venice the claims to the remainder of Imperial possessions in Lombardy except for Cremona, ending the war with a return to the status quo of 1508.
Notes
- ^ The conflict comprising the 1508–1516 portion of the Italian Wars may be divided into three separate wars: the War of the League of Cambrai (1508–1510), the War of the Holy League (1510–1514), and Francis I's First Italian War (1515–1516). The War of the Holy League may be further divided into the Papal-Ferrarese War (1510), the War of the Holy League proper (1511–1514), an Anglo-Scottish War (1513), and an Anglo-French War (1513–1514). Certain historians (notably Phillips and Axelrod) refer to each of the component wars separately, while others (notably Norwich) treat the entire conflict as a single war.
References
- . ISBN 0531150542.
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- . ISBN 0393035638.
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- . ISBN 0816028516.
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