The two forces met at Arbedo, north of the contested city of Bellinoza, and the Swiss immediately found themselves outnumbered by the combined Milanese regiments. In the foreground the Swiss army, with the Milanese forces in the background. In the Battle of Arbedo 1422, painted by Benedicht Tschachtlan, the Swiss pikemen were too few and the other side with countless long pikes easily won. The Swiss swarms and their star halberdiers had been rampaging through Europe ever since the death of the Milanese warlord Duke Gian Galeazzo Visconti in 1403, capturing considerable amounts of territory south of the Alps in the valleys of Ossola, Maggia, and Versasca. The Italians had brutally re-captured the city of Bellinoza, one of the many cities that surrendered to the Swiss Confederacy following an expansionist drive starting at the turn of the century. Nearly 40 years later in 1422, the Swiss were once again locked in the throes of combat, this time at Arbedo against the Milanese. However, the Swiss did not learn their lesson that day, and continued to employ halberds as their primary armament in future engagements, a tactic that would eventually lead to the greatest military disaster in their history. The Battle of Sempach had been an extremely close call, as the inferior length of the halberds had put the Swiss forces at a serious disadvantage in the earlier stages of battle. In the pandemonium, the Duke and his men were killed and soundly defeated by the resilient Swiss, who breathed a heavy sigh of relief. A Brief Overview of the Mamluks, the Elite Slave-Soldiers of the Islamic WorldĪfter a while the Swiss miraculously broke the deadlock, charging through the Habsburg lines and forcing Duke Leopold III and his contingents to charge forward at their enemy.Silver Shields: Alexander's Crack Troops Who Betrayed Their New Master.Thousands of Swiss infantrymen were killed by the superior length of the Habsburg lances that allowed Habsburg soldiers to stab and maim the Swiss effectively from a distance. At the Battle of Sempach in 1386, the Swiss armies, armed primarily with halberds (a combined spear and battle-ax), faced off against Habsburg troops, whose dismounted knights brandished longer lances or pikes to hold off the Swiss hordes to great effect. With the Habsburgs, (ruling family of the Holy Roman Empire from 1438-1740) distracted by their eastern conquests into Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia, the Swiss Confederacy attacked the empire’s forces at Sempach in a bid to expand their territories. And it was a few more years before they understood the power of the pike! (Karl Jauslin / Public domain ) Origins of the Swiss Pikemen: The Disaster of Arbedo In the 1386-AD Battle of Sempach, painted here by Karl Jauslin, the Swiss lost because the other side had long pikes that effectively made the halberd spear-axe inferior. It took a long while for the Swiss pikemen to be a force of nature. However, it would take over a century more, and a great tragedy, for the Swiss to finally realize the superiority of the pike, which would transform them into the most elite and sought-after warriors of the Middle Ages: the Swiss pikemen. Going against all the odds, it was one of the first times ever that dismounted commoners had won against the onslaught of armored horsemen, and their victory sent shockwaves throughout Europe as a result. Over a thousand years later in 1315, the peasants of Schywz, who were part of the Swiss Confederation, would re-discover this ancient weapon, heroically fending off the armored knights of Leopold I of Austria with nothing but pikes. However, its history was actually far longer, and stretched back to the ancient times of Phillip II, the father of Alexander the Great, when Macedonian infantry dominated the battlefield wielding a sarissa, a long spear 4 to 7 meters (13 to 23 feet) in length. The medieval pike, around 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) in weight and just under 5 meters (16.4 feet) in length, was a weapon supposedly invented in Turin, Italy in 1327 AD.
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