The Battle of Pavia

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Introduction
Close upon the election of Charles V as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire came the first of a series of wars between that sovereign and Francis I, King of France, who had been Charles’s rival for the imperial crown. The Emperor was at this time, 1521, favored by Henry VIII of England and a secret treaty with Charles was finally concluded by Pope Leo X, who from the first had hesitated between the two young rivals and who had already treated with Francis. The papal support proved the foundation of future power for Charles in Italy. The Pope and the Emperor agreed to unite their forces for expulsion of the French from their seat in the duchy of Milan.

In 1521 hostilities broke out in Navarre and in the Netherlands and finally in the Milanese, where the people were tired of French government. The various allies drove the French completely out of Italy and Charles invaded France but was there repulsed. King Francis, elated by this last success, determined upon another invasion of the Milanese. He went in person to Italy, leaving his mother as regent in France. With largely superior forces, he drove the imperialists before him.

Instead, however, of pursuing the enemy, whom he might have overtaken at an untenable position, Francis, against the almost unanimous advice of his generals, laid siege to the strongly fortified city of Pavia, only to meet before it the crushing defeat which for centuries settled the fate of Italy. Pavia was held by a strong imperialist force under Lannoy.

This selection is by William Robertson.

Time: 1525
Place: Pavia, Italy

Francis prosecuted the siege with obstinacy equal to the rashness with which he had undertaken it. During three months everything known to the engineers of that age, or that could be effected by the valor of his troops, was attempted, in order to reduce the place; while Lannoy and Pescara, unable to obstruct his operations, were obliged to remain in such an ignominious state of inaction that a pasquinade was published at Rome offering a reward to any person who could find the imperial army, lost in the month of October in the mountains between France and Lombardy and which had not been heard of since that time.

Leyva, well acquainted with the difficulties under which his countrymen labored and the impossibility of their facing, in the field, such a powerful army as formed the siege of Pavia, placed his only hopes of safety in his own vigilance and valor. The efforts of both were extraordinary and in proportion to the importance of the place with the defense of which he was entrusted. He interrupted the approaches of the French by frequent and furious sallies. Behind the breaches made by their artillery he erected new works, which appeared to be scarcely inferior in strength to the original fortifications. He repulsed the besiegers in all their assaults and by his own example brought not only the garrison but the inhabitants, to bear the most severe fatigues and to encounter the greatest dangers, without murmuring. The rigor of the season conspired with his endeavors in retarding the progress of the French. Francis, attempting to become master of the town by diverting the course of the Tessino, which is its chief defense on one side, a sudden inundation of the river destroyed, in one day, the labor of many weeks and swept away all the mounds which his army had raised with infinite toil as well as at great expense.

Notwithstanding the slow progress of the besiegers and the glory which Leyva acquired by his gallant defense, it was not doubted but that the town would at last be obliged to surrender. Pope Clement, who already considered the French arms as superior in Italy, became impatient to disengage himself from his connections with the Emperor, of whose designs he was extremely jealous and to enter into terms of friendship with Francis. As Clement’s timid and cautious temper rendered him incapable of following the bold plan which Leo had formed of delivering Italy from the yoke of both the rivals, he returned to the more obvious and practicable scheme of employing the power of the one to balance and to restrain that of the other.

For this reason he did not dissemble his satisfaction at seeing the French King recover Milan, as he hoped that the dread of such a neighbor would be some check upon the Emperor’s ambition, which no power in Italy was now able to control. He labored hard to bring about a peace that would secure Francis in the possession of his new conquests; and as Charles, who was always inflexible in the prosecution of his schemes, rejected the proposition with disdain and with bitter exclamations against the Pope, by whose persuasions, while Cardinal di Medici, he had been induced to invade the Milanese, Clement immediately concluded a treaty of neutrality with the King of France, in which the republic of Florence was included.

Francis having, by this transaction, deprived the Emperor of his two most powerful allies and at the same time having secured a passage for his own troops through their territories, formed a scheme of attacking the kingdom of Naples, hoping either to overrun that country, which was left altogether without defense, or that at least such an unexpected invasion would oblige the viceroy to recall part of the imperial army out of the Milanese. For this purpose he ordered six thousand men to march under the command of John Stuart, Duke of Albany. But Pescara, foreseeing that the effect of this diversion would depend entirely upon the operations of the armies in the Milanese, persuaded Lannoy to disregard Albany’s motions and to bend his whole force against the King himself; so that Francis not only weakened his army very unseasonably by this great detachment but incurred the reproach of engaging too rashly in chimerical and extravagant projects.

By this time the garrison of Pavia was reduced to extremity; their ammunition and provisions began to fail; the Germans, of whom it was chiefly composed, having received no pay for seven months, threatened to deliver the town into the enemy’s hands and could hardly be restrained from mutiny by all Leyva’s address and authority. The imperial generals, who were no strangers to his situation, saw the necessity of marching without loss of time to his relief. This they had now in their power. Twelve thousand Germans, whom the zeal and activity of Bourbon taught to move with unusual rapidity, had entered Lombardy under his command and rendered the imperial army nearly equal to that of the French, greatly diminished by the absence of the body under Albany, as well as by the fatigues of the siege and the rigor of the season.

But the more their troops increased in number, the more sensibly did the imperialists feel the distress arising from want of money. Far from having funds for paying a powerful army, they had scarcely what was sufficient for defraying the charges of conducting their artillery and of carrying their ammunition and provisions. The abilities of the generals, however, supplied every defect. By their own example, as well as by magnificent promises in name of the Emperor, they prevailed on the troops of all the different nations which composed their army to take the field without pay; they engaged to lead them directly toward the enemy and flattered them with the certain prospect of victory, which would at once enrich them with such royal spoils as would be an ample reward for all their services. The soldiers, sensible that, by quitting the army, they would forfeit the great arrears due to them and eager to get possession of the promised treasures, demanded a battle with all the impatience of adventurers who fight only for plunder.

The imperial generals, without suffering the ardor of their troops to cool, advanced immediately toward the French camp. On the first intelligence of their approach, Francis called a council of war to deliberate what course he ought to take. All his officers of greatest experience were unanimous in advising him to retire and to decline a battle with an enemy who courted it from despair. The imperialists, they observed, would either be obliged in a few weeks to disband an army which they were unable to pay and which they kept together only by the hope of plunder, or the soldiers, enraged at the nonperformance of the promises to which they had trusted, would rise in some furious mutiny, which would allow their generals to think of nothing but their own safety; that meanwhile he might encamp in some strong post and, waiting in safety the arrival of fresh troops from France and Switzerland, might before the end of spring take possession of all the Milanese without danger or bloodshed. But in opposition to them, Bonnivet, whose destiny it was to give counsels fatal to France during the whole campaign, represented the ignominy that it would reflect on their sovereign if he should abandon a siege which he had prosecuted so long, or turn his back before an enemy to whom he was still superior in number and insisted on the necessity of fighting the imperialists rather than relinquish an undertaking on the success of which the King’s future fame depended. Unfortunately, Francis’ notions of honor were delicate to an excess that bordered on what was romantic. Having often said that he would take Pavia or perish in the attempt, he thought himself bound not to depart from that resolution; and, rather than expose himself to the slightest imputation, he chose to forego all the advantages which were the certain consequences of a retreat and determined to wait for the imperialists before the walls of Pavia.

Continued.

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