The Italian Wars

Southern Italy Series

-----The Italian Wars-----

The French army of 25,000 (including 8,000 Swiss mercenaries) under its young king Charles VIII of France, entered Naples in February of 1495. Pope Alexander VI was frightened by the power of the French so he formed an alliance, the League of Venice, to oppose them.

The French clashed with the League at the battle of Fornovo. Though the League lost more men, they were able seize the French baggage train carrying the loot plundered from Naples. Without money the French could no longer pay their Swiss mercenaries and they were compelled to retreat back to France where Charles died a few years later at age 27.

But Naples was still occupied by the French. Queen Isabella of Castile sent her best general, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, to assist the young Ferdinand II of Naples in driving the French from his kingdom.

In 1499 Louis XII of France succeeded Charles as king and invaded Italy after claiming the Duchy of Milan. Louis then made a deal with Ferdinand II of Aragon to split the kingdom of Naples. But after capturing the kingdom from King Ferdinand IV of Naples in 1501 the French and Spanish turned on one another. Gonzalo, now referred to by the Castilians as the Great Captain, defeated the French armies at Cerignola and Garigliano. The French were compelled to withdraw north to Milan and made peace with the Spanish in 1504. Frederick IV of Naples died that same year and the kingdom was added to the crown of Ferdinand II of Aragon.

Simultaneously Cesare Borgia attempted, with the help of his father Pope Alexander VI, to unite Italy using papal armies. He began by running the Romagna as a personal fief and firing the local elite. When Borgia’s power weakened the local lords turned to the Venetians for help in reclaiming their privileges and lands.

The Spanish received a major setback in 1504 when Isabella of Castile died. Her daughter Joanna was crowned queen of Castile along with her husband Philip I. Joanna’s father, Ferdinand of Aragon was dispossessed of his right to rule Castile. Philip died two years later, and Castile fell into disarray. Ferdinand returned to Castile in 1507 and sent Joanna to a convent. In 1511 Ferdinand annexed the kingdom of Navarre to the crown of Castile. When Ferdinand died in 1516 the crown of Aragon as now passed to Joanna and her son in the Netherlands, Charles. United in his person the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon could finally be ruled as a united Spain.

Back in Italy in 1508 Pope Julius II created the League of Cambrai to defeat the Venetians and resecure Papal sovereignty in the Romagna. But after recovering the Romagna in 1510, Pope Julius decided that France (already in the League) was the greater threat and left the League to join the Venetians in fighting the French. After losing a campaign Pope Julius declared his alliance to be a Holy League and convinced the Spanish and the Holy Roman Empire to join. Rivalry between the Empire and Venice lead the Venetians to leave the alliance and join the French. In 1513 Pope Julius II died, as did King Louis XII of France two years later. Francis I succeeded Louis and continued the war. After the battle of Marignano the French recaptured Milan and the war was over.

In 1519 Emperor Maximilian died, and was succeeded by his grandson Charles I of Spain who now united in himself more realms than any previous European monarch [link] and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The French began another against Charles just as he was forced to confront Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms over the issue of the Protestant Reformation. The war ended with the decisive Battle of Pavia where the Spanish captured King Francis I. As part of his ransom, he was forced to renounce all his claims in Italy. Meanwhile Hernan Cortéz had conquered Mexico.

In 1526 Pope Celement VII formed the League of Cognac to defeat Emperor Charles V and drive the Spanish and the Germans from Italy. In 1527 unpaid armies in the service of Charles sacked Rome. The war ended in 1530 with a Spanish victory. In 1532 Francisco Pizzaro slaughtered the Inca assembled in the square at Cajamarca and took their emperor Atahualpa prisoner.

Then in 1536 the duke of Milan died. Charles gave Milan to his son Philip, prompting another French invasion of Italy and attacks on the Spanish Netherlands. Francis declared war again in 1542 and with the fleet of his Ottoman ally Suleiman I (the Magnificent), but the war ended four years later, again in stalemate. Francis died in 1547 and was succeeded by his son King Henry II of France.

Henry started another war against Charles V in 1551. But by 1556 Charles abdicated his throne and divided the Hapsburg possessions between his son Philip II of Spain and his brother Ferdinand I of Austria. Philip continued the war.

I have included two quotes from Henry Kamen’s Empire: How Spain became a world power 1492-1763 in order to elucidate his thesis that the nature of Spanish power was dynastic rather than imperial and to describe the Battle of Saint Quentin, which ended the Italian Wars.

“While the French army invaded Italy to attack Milan, another invaded the Netherlands. By July 1557 Philip in Brussels had assembled a defensive army of thirty-five thousand men, commanded by Emanuele Filiberto, the duke of Savoy, and William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, with cavalry under the orders of Lamoral, Earl of Egmont. Of Philip’s total available forces (not all of whom took part in the battle) only twelve per cent were Spaniards. Fifty-three per cent were Germans, twenty-three per cent were Netherlanders, and twelve per cent English. All the chief commanders were non-Spaniards.” p152

“In a short but bloody action the army of Flanders routed and destroyed the French forces, which lost over five thousand men, with thousands more taken prisoner. Possibly no more than five hundred of Savoy’s army lost their lives. It was one of the most brilliant military victories of the age. Philip’s friend and advisor Ruy Gómez remarked that the victory had evidently been of God, since it had been won ‘without experience, without troops, and without money’, though Spaniards played only a small part in it, the glory redounded to the new king of Spain, and Philip saw it as God’s blessing on his reign. The French were forced into peace negotiations and peace talks, which began late in 1558, ended with the signing of a treaty in April 1559 at Cateau-Cambrésis.” p152

Southern Italy Series

500 BC [link] Origins
264 BC [link] The Punic Wars
115 AD [link] The Roman Empire
405 [link] East and West
526 [link] Collapse of the West
565 [link] Reconquest
572 [link] Lombard Invasion
751 [link] Lombard Italy
814 [link] Charlemagne’s Empire
1000 [link] Italy and the Holy Roman Empire
1095 [link] The Norman Conquest
1154 [link] The Kingdom of Sicily
1250 [link] Hohenstaufen Italy
1280 [link] Anjou Sicily
1300 [link] War of the Vespers
1400 [link] Black Death
1492 [link] Renaissance Italy
1559 The Italian Wars
1715 [link] Habsburg Italy
1780 [link] Bourbon Italy
1799 [link] Revolutionary Italy
1812 [link] Napoleonic Italy
1860 [link] United Italy

2/19/12 EDIT:
map base source [link]
map base created by Citypeek [link]