The Battle of Ravenna: 500th Anniversary

THE BATTLE OF RAVENNA


Wednesday April 11 2012 is going to be the 500th anniversary of the battle of Ravenna, fought between France and the Holy League; one the most important and bloodiest clashes of the Italian Wars(1494-1559).


ANTECEDENT: THE HOLY LEAGUE


The battle of Ravenna is part of the so-called War of the League of Cambrai (1508-1516).
The affair started to oppose the increasing influence and expansion of the Republic of Venice in the Italian Peninsula ; but by 1510, the situation was radically different: with most of the Po’ Valley under French control, Pope Iulius II, the mastermind of the League of Cambrai(having made peace with Venice and secured the Romagna region) decided to switch side and formed a coalition(first only with Venice, later joined by Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, England and the Swiss Cantons) to oppose the French king Louis XII and his ally Alfonso I d’Este, Duke of Ferrara.
Despite this, the French troops still had the initiative; under the new commander Gaston de Foix they captured the important city of Bologna( May 13th 1511) and later crushed Venice’s resurgence in Lombardy(the sack of Brescia of February 18th 1512 is one the most infamous event of the Italian Wars).
Louis XII, eager to end the war, ordered Gaston to march south in the Romagna region in order seek a decisive battle with the forces of the Holy League.


PRELUDE: ASSAULTING THE TOWN
On April 9th 1512 the French troops started their attack on Ravenna: Gaston ordered a massive artillery fire to breach the walls and later sent men-at-arms to assault the gaps.
The famous condottiere Marcantonio Colonna was in charge of Ravenna’s defence, but with less than three thousand soldiers his situation was pretty desperate. However, they managed to drive back every single French assault and after six hours of fightings, they inflicted more than 300 casualties to Gaston’s army.
Despite that, the authorities of Ravenna contacted the French side to negotiate the surrender of the town with no further bloodshed(some say they only wanted to buy some time, others think that they acted that way after hearing about the Sack of Brescia).
Regardless, a relief army soon arrived and entrenched itself near the Ronco river, waiting for the French to began the battle..

MAIN CHARACTERS
Gaston de Foix


The young Gaston, nephew of the King Louis XII, was the general commander of the French troops in the Italian Peninsula
Famous for his rapid victories and bold actions, he was nicknamed “The Thunderbolt of Italy”.

Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard
He was one of the veteran commanders of the French army, having served Charles VIII during the Italian War of 1494-98. Famous for his gallantry and honourable conducts on the battlefield,his actions were decisive in the French victory at Agnadello against Venice(1509). He was a personal friend of Gaston de Foix.

Jacques de la Palice
Another veteran of the Italian Wars who started his career under Charles VIII. He was appointed Grand Master of France and acted as overall commander of the French between the death of Charles d’Amboise and the appointment of Gaston de Foix.

Alfonso I d’Este, Duke of Ferrara

Knowing of the strategic importance of his dukedom, Alfonso always kept a balanced and wise political position; however, he refused to abandon his French allies even after the excommunication by Iulius II.
The Duke of Ferrara was famous for the efficiency of his artillery pieces( which inflicted a bitter defeat to the Venetians at the Battle of Polesella,shortly after Agnadello).
He was the husband of Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of the late Pope Alexander VI.


Ramon de Cardona
Appointed Viceroy of Naples by Ferdinand II of Aragon(1505), he fought during the War of the League of Cambrai and became the general commander of the forces of the Holy League.
During the war, he kept a cautious and waiting strategy, sharply different to Gaston de Foix’s.

Fernando d’Avalos

The Spanish general commanded the light cavalry at the Battle of Ravenna.
He was Fabrizio Colonna’s son-in-law.

Pedro Navarro

A respected Spanish military engineer, Pedro Navarro was responsible for the creation of the Holy League’s fortified camp.
He gained fame under the service of Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba, especially during the battle of Cerignola, where the French were defeated thanks to his creation of several trenches that broke the furious assaults of the Duke of Nemours’ troops.


Marcantonio Colonna
Member of the famous Colonna family, he fought under Pope Iulius II and defended Ravenna from the French assaults prior to the battle.

Fabrizio Colonna
Another condottiere from the Roman Colonna family, at Ravenna he commanded a cavalry unit.
He is the main speaker of Machiavelli’s “The Art of War”.

Giovanni de Medici
The future Pope Leo X , son of Lorenzo de Medici “The Magnificent”; at the time of the Battle of Ravenna he acted as papal legate for the Romagna region.

THE DEPLOYMENT OF THE ARMIES
The army of Gaston de Foix numbered around thirty thousand men, deployed in the following order:
The duke of Ferrara was in charge of the right flank, where he deployed all his fifty artillery pieces and was supported by around five thousand German Landsknechts.
The knights of La Palice(600 lances) soon followed behind the Duke of Ferrara.
As usual, the French infantry, composed of around eight thousand men(mostly Gascons and Picards), was entrusted with the front.
Most of the Italian troops allied with the French, consisting mainly of light infantry and light cavalry(numbering around five thousand troops) took position of the left flank
Yves d’Alegre,another veteran of the Italian Wars, commanded the rearguard.


The whole army of the Holy League was deployed inside the fortified camp, with Fabrizio Colonna and his men-at arms taking position in the center, near the Spanish tercios under Ramon de Cardona(around nine thousand troops)
Behind them was positioned most of the Italian Infantry(about three thousand troops), while the light cavalry commanded by Fernando d’Avalos started the battle at the far right of the formation.

THE BATTLE
At around eight A.M. of April 11, 1512 the battle of Ravenna began with an intense artillery exchange between the two armies that lasted for about two hours.The troops of the Holy League, protected by the earthworks, suffered less casualties, while The French lost around eight hundred men-at-arms and even more Gascon infantrymen.
Alfonso d’Este,exploiting the manoeuvrability of his artillery pieces, moved his battery from the right to the left wing of the French army, directly facing the Spanish light cavalry of Alfonso d’Avalos and the heavy cavalry of Fabrizio Colonna.
The cannons of Alfonso d’Este soon began to wreak havoc inside the fortified camp of the Holy League: their fire mauled the cavalry and forced the Spanish infantry to crouch or hide as best they could.
Several shots fired by the Ferrarese cannons flied over the fortified camp, inflicting many casualties even to the French.
Meanwhile, the Holy League cavalry under Fabrizio Colonna,exasperated by the artillery fire, left its position and clashed with the the French gendarms of La Palice.
The Marquis of Padula and Fernando d’Avalos, both cavalry commanders of the Holy League tried to perform encircling manoeuvres in order to attack the French from behind but failed and were defeated by the troops under Gaston de Foix(the Marquis of la padula's troops found themselves bogged down by the marshes that surrouded the battlefield).
At the centre of the battle, the Spanish infantry now faced the Landsknechts serving under the French, while the Italian troops of the Holy League fought against the Gascons and Picards: the infantry duel was “balanced” but also violent and deadly.
The turning point of the battle was the destruction of Fabrizion Colonna’s formation, that left the Spanish tercios of the Holy League alone against the army of Gaston de Foix; Ramon de Cardona, the commander of the joint Papal-Spanish army abandoned the battlefield and was pursued by the troops of Bayard.
Despite the collapse of the cavalry, the tercios under Ramon de Cardona managed to resist against overwhelming enemy’s attacks, but at the end, heavy pressed by the French and German infantry, by the reserve and Ives d’Alegre and even by Gaston de Foix’s own troops, the Spanish formation was shattered, just like every remnant hope of the Holy League.
But Gaston de Foix, informed about an enemy formation leaving the battlefield almost intact, decided to keep on with the pressure in order to reach the retreating Spanish; with nothing more than his personal retinue, he intercepted the soldiers, but was soon overpowered and perished after being wounded several times by halberds and firearms.
With the ill-fated death of Gaston de Foix, the battle of Ravenna was officially over, after more than seven hours of violent fightings.




THE AFTERMATH
By the end of the afternoon, the battlefield around Ravenna was full of corpses and wounded soldiers,the number of the casualties has been estimated around fifteen-twenty thousand.
The Holy League paid the highest toll in terms of human lives, but also saw most of his commanders captured: among them Fabrizio Colonna,Pedro Navarro(who later decided to join the French, captured and executed by the Spanish as a traitor in 1528), Fernando d’Avalos and the Papal legate Giovanni de Medici.
The French side suffered less casualties(among them around 150 noblemen, including Yves d'Alegre), but the death of Gaston de Foix proved to be fatal for the continuation of the war: La Palice, the new commander of Louis XII’s troops, didn’t had the initiative nor the skills of the late Gaston; an approaching Swiss army only made the situation worse and the French soon retreated from the Romagna region in order to protect their conquests in Lombardy from the Helvetics,ally of Julius II.
The town of Ravenna suffered the worst fate: every single building was sacked, women raped and children killed; while the garrison of Marcantonio Colonna helplessly watched from the bastion’s walls.


Grave of Gaston de Foix(Castello Sforzesco,Milan)


“Colonna dei Francesi”(Frenchmen’s Colums) erected in 1557 to commemorate the French casualties at Ravenna(Madonna dell’Albero,Ravenna)