FULK NERRA AND THE CREATION OF ANJOU

Fulk Nerra's fortress strategy greatly expanded Anjou. He constructed a network of castles, fortified houses, and towns no more than a day's march apart, to surround and isolate his enemies. The map shows the defensive beginnings and later offensive momentum which this strategy of conquest generated.

For over half a century, from 980 to around 1030, Fulk Nerra dominated his county by means of a fortress strategy. At first this was defensive. His greatest competitor was Odo I, count of Blois, and ruler of the important city of Tours. Odo also controlled Saumur, so cutting off Angevin contact with the Touraine. In 992-94, Fulk constructed Langeais to secure a route south from Angers. He also drew upon his father's alliance with Bouchard of Vendome to outflank Tours. His prime aim was to establish lines of communication with his southern fortresses of Loudun, Loches, and the Vienne valley. There was a risk that Fulk's vassals might transfer their allegiance to the count of Blois to preserve their lands; their defenders could submit to a besieger without penalty - only if they held out would they suffer massacre. So, Fulk's fortifications acted as staging posts, both defensible refuges and bases for supporting advances. They needed to be within a day's march of one another; no more than 20 miles (32 km) apart.

The sudden death of Odo in 996 allowed Fulk to take the initiative. He seized control of the Loire valley from Montsoreau to Amboise; but he had overreached himself. The new king of France, Robert, married Bertha of Blois and recaptured the city. Fulk learnt his lesson and was a most scrupulous vassal thereafter. He worked instead on developing a secure route through the northern Touraine to Amboise, constructing and rebuilding castles a day's march apart at Semblançay, Château-la-Valliere, and Baugé. Once again this was defensive, while the fortification of a domus (house) at Morand to harass communications between Tours and Chateau Renault was aggressive.

South of the Loire, Fulk was strong in the valleys of the Indre and Vienne, but lacked a good link from Angers to Vihiers above the Layon. The situation was worsened by the defection of his previous ally, viscount Aimeri of Thouars, in 994. Needing a link to Loudun, Fulk began by fortifying Passavant and Montglan, a little further east. Montreuil-Bellay was only constructed c.1 030, after the fall of Saumur. Its castellan, Berlaius, and his garrison ofcaballarii (mounted warriors) were tasked with protecting the area from attacks by the men of Thouars.

Meanwhile, following the loss of Tours in 997, Fulk began to encircle the city, building Montbazon in the same year. The castle also operated against the Blésois communications between Tours and lIe-Bouchard and, in co-ordination with the garrison of Langeais, against Chinon. Soon after 1000, Fulk established a castle southeast of Tours at Montrésor.
Montrichard was constructed c.1005 to increase the pressure on St Aignan, a castle captured later and used as a base for further penetration of the Cher valley. Odo II's campaigns to recover St Aignan led to his defeat by Fulk at the battle of Pontlevoy in 1016.

In the west, Fulk used his vassals effectively, with Renaud controlling Champtoceaux c.998, and Drogo in Chateaupanne c.1 006. Montjean was constructed shordy afterwards. St Florent-le-Vieil completed the defence of the Loire in the 1030s. Pushing south, Montrevault was established at the same time and later, in the 1020s, Montfaucon and La Tour Landry stood against hostile Thouars. Mirebeau, built c.1 000, protected the southern march from attack from Poitiers. Fulk's influence may have spread even further south, supporting the lord of Parthenay in constructing that castle (c.1012) and later an outpost at Germond (1026). The strength of William V, count of Aquitaine, meant that it was advisable to use a less direct strategy than that employed against the count of Blois.

In the north, Fulk built upon the position established by his father at Sable. Chateau-Gontier, on the Mayenne, and Chateau du Loir were constructed after 1005 against Le Mans. Most of the castles were built in the 101 Os and 1020s, establishing a deep frontier, or limes, along the river Loir. It is possible to identify several strategic groupings of castles in a similar fashion, defending Fulk's territories. Of course, these did not form a rigid defensive line, rather a flexible defence-in-depth against the chevauchee. In 1026 and 1027, Odo II of Blois penetrated as far as Saumur, which had fallen to Fulk in the former year - but to no avail.

Castle garrisons were not intended to challenge an invading force, rather to harass it. Unless the attacker wished to commit his forces to siege, and risk being surprised by a relief force, he could achieve little. Fulk avoided battle and preferred to develop a strategic stranglehold through his fortifications. The final result, although not in his lifetime, was the conquest of Tours in 1044, after a half century of pressure.

Andean Rebellion of the Eighteenth Century

Micaela Bastidas

Role of women in eighteenth-century Andean rebellions against the Spanish. The eighteenth century in the Andes has been called the age of Andean rebellion. Starting in 1730 with a rebellion in Cochabamba, the era was marked by numerous localized village revolts, insurrections, and protests, culminating in the firestorm of the Great Rebellion of 1780–1782. This violent upheaval in southern Peru and territories in present-day Bolivia and northern Chile, according to probably exaggerated contemporary estimates, left more than 100,000 dead. The rebellion comprised two large insurgencies, which gradually merged during the first half of 1781: the Túpac Amaru uprising in southern Peru and the Túpac Catari uprising in Charcas (present-day Bolivia). Women played a central role in the Great Rebellion, as both protagonists and victims. The participation of rebel women in these insurgencies often stemmed from their insertion into the kinship network of a male insurgent leader, but they led as well as followed, and some acted entirely of their own volition. That they were able to do so owed much to the remarkable relative freedom that rural, especially indigenous, women enjoyed in eighteenth century rural Andean society.

After two centuries of colonial rule, Andean women of the eighteenth century, despite legal provisions that ostensibly circumscribed their freedom of action, were deeply enmeshed in all areas of economic and social life. Restrictions bore more heavily on elite Hispanic women than on their indigenous or mixed-race counterparts. The exceptions to this rule were female slaves, as distinct from free blacks; the conditions in which the slaves lived ranged from poor to appalling. Yet here, too, ways were found to navigate legal prohibitions to one’s own advantage. Domestic slaves, particularly those in urban areas, often enjoyed a fair measure of de facto liberty, at least in comparison to their counterparts on rural haciendas and coastal plantations, whose living conditions were often dire.

Women immersed themselves fully in productive and commercial endeavors, despite ostensibly being severely restricted by law from the freedom to work in a trade or to engage in commerce. Marriage, of course, was the most viable way of life for women of the time, but numerous middle- and lower-class Hispanic women earned their daily bread as market traders or tailors, by making and renting festive costumes, by conducting long-distance commerce, and as petty rentières and money lenders. Among the upper tiers of society, not a few women held sway over family haciendas and estancia operations; others ran textile manufactories both large and small. From surviving notarized testaments, it is evident that many such women accumulated impressive fortunes and exercised de facto influence, both over their extended families and within colonial society.

Away from the cities, rural women, especially indigenous women, appear to have had fewer constraints. It was among the overwhelmingly more numerous indigenous population that women came to exercise an influence that took them to war in roles ranging from leaders (cacicas, or female chiefs) to camp followers (rabanas). Rural areas, however far-flung, did have strong links to the cities; members of the indigenous communities realized that cities offered a chance to market their produce and a place where they might find work. It was the city that provided an opportunity for women to become wage earners. This was not a woman’s individual decision, but a collective community, or at least familial, strategy to earn money for taxes and to obtain merchandise and foodstuff otherwise unavailable through subsistence farming and village markets. Urban domestic service in the coastal cities depended heavily on slave or free black workers, but in the highland cities such as La Paz and Cuzco, indigenous servants were the norm; young indigenous servant women, in particular, were ubiquitous in urban households. Indigenous and mixed-race women (castas, mestizas, mulattas, cholas, pardas) had a salient presence in late colonial protests, whether violent or peaceful.

In both cities and the country, indigenous and caste women shared the general malaise that led to the outbreak of the Great Rebellion of 1780–1782 in the southern Andes. Three women in particular stood out as leaders in 1780–1781: Micaela Bastidas, wife of José Gabriel Túpac Amaru; Bartolina Sisa, wife of Túpac Catari; and Túpac Catari’s sister, Gregoria Apasa, who upon becoming the consort (amante) of Andrés Túpac Amaru, helped to unify the two insurgencies following the capture and execution of her brother. These three consorts were more than the “women behind the throne.” They played an active role that perhaps owed more to indigenous understandings of shared familial or clan responsibilities than to European notions of patriarchal leadership. In rural society, female authority was more pronounced among the upper tiers of indigenous society, manifest in the widespread phenomenon of female incumbency of the indigenous chieftainships (cacicazgos). These were the cacicas, whose authority spanned the full gamut of functions associated with this office. Their authority ranged from sole responsibility or shared responsibility with their spouses to nominal responsibility in which the woman inherited the office from a relative, the duties of which were performed thenceforth by her husband.

The most prominent of these three figures was Micaela Bastidas. At times, she appears to have directed rebel operations and to have had a better sense of military priorities than her husband, whose undoubted charisma was not always matched by a clear strategic vision or a recognition of the need to take urgent action to forestall looming military and logistical crises. Bastidas, on the contrary, combined strategic clarity with a heightened sense of urgency. Her demonstrated ability as a military planner and staff officer was superior to that of her husband. Moreover, Bastidas was reputed to have been fiercer than her husband, issuing threats to the fainthearted and ordering reprisals against deserters, peninsular Spaniards (chapetones), and even creoles (españoles), although she herself had been registered as a Creole (española) at her baptism. It was alleged that her orders and threats led to the death of many chapetones and Creoles in the provinces. She employed a mixture of menace and persuasion in forging and maintaining alliances and allegiances, oversaw prisoners and their interrogation, and directed recruiting efforts once the rebellion had commenced. She also made rebel loyalists and her “favorites” officeholders (caciques, alcaldes) in many highland villages. Bastidas received aid from her kinswomen, among whom Cecilia Túpac Amaru and Marcela Castro are the best known. She ruled with an iron hand at the rebel headquarters in Tungasuca while her husband was on expeditions. She sent written orders to the provinces, organized logistics, and even reprimanded her spouse over his lack of urgency and inability to understand the ebb and flow of the fortunes of war. Bastidas combined decisiveness in command with a clear appreciation of strategic and tactical considerations; her grasp of details was as assured as her astute appreciation of the strategic imperatives.

Bartolina Sisa did not exercise control over rebel partisans to nearly such a degree as did Bastidas, but she did accompany her husband and his army in battle. Indeed, her husband similarly lacked the stature of Túpac Amaru, such that Catari needed to shore up his own uncertain authority by invoking Amaru’s name. Nevertheless, Bartolina Sisa remained at the center of operations in upper Peru. In particular, she helped form, organize, and direct the catarista army. Gregoria Apasa, however, surpassed Sisa’s achievements and leadership status, and her role from mid-1781 was more akin to that of Bastidas in the northern movement. By that time, José Gabriel had been captured and executed, and his nephew Andrés (Mendigure) Túpac Amaru had taken effective control of the greater insurgency. His personal liaison with Túpac Catari’s sister facilitated the union of the two movements. Their relationship was part political, part personal, and it is impossible to ascertain precisely the extent to which Andrés and Gregoria shared power. Clearly, however, she played a major role in the combined operations of the joint insurgency. In a notorious incident, when rebel forces took the town of Sorata, she and Andrés jointly sat in judgment of the captives, many of whom were summarily executed.

Gregoria Apasa became popularly known as queen (reina) of the southern insurgency. Micaela Bastidas was deferred to variously as la cacica, señora gobernadora, or simply “wife of the rebel.” There was, however, tacit recognition of her de facto regal status: Túpac Catari called himself viceroy and his wife vicereine, thereby acknowledging the sovereignty of José Gabriel Túpac Amaru; Micaela was thus implicitly regarded as queen, in contrast to Bartolina’s vicereine. Titles were important within indigenous society; rank lent elite authority. This held true for both women and men. Micaela derived her authority from José Gabriel’s status as Inca. There were, however, other women who collaborated closely during the rebellion whose elite status sprang from their high birth or innate talents. The cacica of the towns of Acos and Acomayo, Tomasa Tito Condemaita, led the Indians within her chiefdom to the field of battle. The cacica of Combapata, Catalina Salas Pachacuti, was of noble Incan lineage; her husband was Ramón Moscoso, who derived his local authority from her inherited office and who was the cousin of the powerful bishop of Cuzco. Therefore, Doña Catalina enjoyed an elite status in both town and country. We know less about a third rebel cacica, Francisca Herrera, who nevertheless is perhaps the most interesting of these three: she is also described as a beata, or holy woman. This intriguing aside hints at a religious wellspring of female political authority in rural areas.

There is similar testimony in two later movements: in Lircay (Huancavelica) in 1811 and in Ocongate in the Cuzco region in 1814–1815. During the former, which was a localized messianic revolt, the charismatic authority of the leader was said to derive from his mother, an alleged sorceress (bruja); in the latter case, a major indigenous insurgency within the 1814 so-called revolution of the fatherland, the wife of the principal insurgent was also said to be a bruja. In any event, religious praxis and political authority were probably indivisible within native Andean society, and political authority in the colonial Andes encompassed the principle that a woman or a man might hold political office, either separately or jointly.

It was therefore right and proper that female leaders such as Bastidas, Sisa, Apasa, and Tito Condemaita should be tried for treason and related crimes; they could hardly expect a plea of mitigation, based on compulsion from their spouses, to succeed. It followed ineluctably that they would be found guilty, and the penalty for treason was death. Because of their culpability, many women died, because the death penalty was judged appropriate to their crimes. What was not consonant with due legal process, however, was the horrific manner of their execution. A few details will suffice: Bastidas’s tongue was cut out, and she was then garroted. Because of the slenderness of her neck, this method was unsuccessful, and the two official executioners tied ropes around her neck, which each pulled, all the while punching her stomach and breasts until she died. Apasa was paraded with a crown made of nails, and Sisa was ritually humiliated in a similar manner. The corpses of all three were decapitated and dismembered, with their heads, arms, and hands placed on pikes at select villages throughout the southern highlands. If under prevailing legal norms they deserved death, the manner of their execution was unwarranted— and is resented to the present day by Peruvians and Bolivians. Today these women are venerated as martyrs and heroines in the struggle for freedom from Spanish tyranny.

References and Further Reading
Campbell, Leon. “Women and the Great Rebellion in Peru, 1780–1783,” The Americas 42, no. 2 (1985):163–196.
Martín, Luis. 1983. Daughters of the Conquistadores: Women of the Viceroyalty of Peru. Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press.
Silverblatt, Irene. 1987. Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial
Peru. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Socolow, Susan Migden. 2000. The Women of Colonial Latin America. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Stavig, Ward. 1999. The World of Túpac Amaru: Conflict, Community, and Identity in Colonial
Peru. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Thomson, Sinclair. 2002. We Alone Will Rule: Native Andean Politics in the Age of Insurgency. Madison: University of Wisconsin.

Polish Carpathian Lancers Regiment

The Carpathian Lancers Regiment was organized in Homs-Syria, in April, 1940 as the Polish Carpathian Brigade Cavalry Reconnaissance Unit. In January, 1941, in Egypt, the Brigade was reorganized along British Army lines and from that time was called the Independent Carpathian Rifles Brigade (or the officially titled English name of Polish Independent Brigade Group).

Consequently in June, 1941, Carpathian Lancers gave up their horses to the English and they started to undergo the process of mechanization. It needed of course much time and intensive schooling and training. They used for that purpose various equipment usually of old types among the others they used Marmon Harrington armoured cars, Universal Carriers, American tanks M3 Stuart and some vehicles captured of enemy both Italian and German. The schooling lasted month after month at intervals for executing the combat duties in the Western Desert. For instance The Carpathian Lancers took part in the defence of besieged Tobruk, Libya from the 28th August until 9th December, 1941 (i.e. the Regiment remained all 104 days in the frontline). After leaving Tobruk the Lancers advanced in pursuit towards Acroma which they reached and conquered on forenoon of the 10th of December. On the 19-th December, 1941 the Regiment went back to Egypt where it was retrain and re-equip with motorized transport at Mena Camp under the Pyramids. During further dangers to Egypt in July, 1942 the Carpathian Lancers Regiment took part in the defence of the Nile Delta at Delta Barrage. Polish Tank Platoon of the Carpathian Lancers received captured PzKpfw III for training purposes, while in Egypt in August of 1942.

In the year 1943 the Carpathian Lancers Regiment became the Wide Reconnaissance unit of the Polish 2nd Corps under the command of Gen Anders, and was equipped with American armoured cars, type Staghound (14t) Mk. I furnished with 37 mm AT gun, and Staghound Mk. II furnished with 76.2 mm howitzer, and Staghound AA furnished with anti-aircraft machine guns mounted in the turret. The regiment also had a battery of self-propelled guns M3, caliber 75 mm mounted on half-truck chassis (it was the only regiment equipped in the heavy armoured cars in the Polish Forces in the West engaged in the battlefields).

In December, 1943 the Polish 2nd Corps Italy included to British Eight Army landed in Italy. In its ranks the Polish went through the whole Italian campaign. The Carpathian Lancers took part in all fights of the Polish Forces starting, in February, 1944, defending Sangro River front-line through Monte Cassino Battle, capture of Ancona, and entering Bologna on April 21, 1945. Since the Monte Cassino Battle the Lancers already fought for all time solely as a real reconnaissance unit on their Staghound armoured cars.

Just after the war the Polish 2nd Corps underwent a new reorganization. There was formed new combat unit named the 2nd Warsaw Armoured Division. As a result of that the Carpathian Lancers Regiment became divisional reconnaissance unit. It gave up all its armoured cars, Staghound, to the 12th Podolski Lancers Regiment which was to execute duties Carpathian Lancers did hitherto. The regiment got Sherman tanks of different types and modifications. In fact it was old, used equipment being suitable for schooling and training only and incomplete (e.g. without 17 pound AT guns). After rearming they decided to transfer and paint onto tanks and armoured cars the same names as they were given. And so photographs present the Carpathian Lancers during their march past the front of Gen H. Alexander and Gen W. Anders, in the vicinity of Loreto, on the 15th of August, 1945. To emphasize their cavalry tradition, the lancers wore or carried over their left shoulders French leather cavalry pouches that they had yet received when having been placed under French command from May to June, 1940.

Edited Account by "Nacht" from Andrzej Antoni Kaminski's work cited

Battle of Saint Gotthard (1664)

St Gotthard was the major battle in the Austro-Turkish war of 1663-64. In 1661, Habsburg forces under the Italian Raimondo Montecuccoli had intervened in Transylvania to assist a rebellion against the Turks. This was unsuccessful and provoked Turkish attacks on Austria. Montecuccoli repelled the 1663 attack and checked the invasion in 1664 at St Gotthard.

THE WAR OF 1663-64
War resumed in 1663 as a result of Habsburg efforts to challenge Ottoman dominance of Transylvania. The Grand Vizier, Fazil Ahmet, advanced in 1664, being met near St Gotthard by the Austrians under Montecuccoli, who sought to block any Ottoman advance on Graz or Vienna. The Austrians were supported by German contingents and by French troops sent by Louis XIV. The Ottoman forces, prevented from advancing across the river Raab, lost their cannon, but avoided a rout. The war was terminated swiftly by the Peace of Vasvar (1664), with an Austrian agreement to respect the Ottoman position in Transylvania.

Ahmed Fazil Köprülü (1635–1676).
Grand vezier at 26, in direct succession following his father Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, holding office from 1661–1676. He was as ruthless as his father but far more debauched. Like his father, he began his term by exterminating in a bloody purge all political opposition he could identify, including some courtiers who had supported his father and his own succession. Köprülü Ahmed Fazil also continued his father’s policy of full-bore aggression into Hungary and other Habsburg lands. His offensive into Hungary was stopped by Montecuccoli at St. Gotthard (August 1, 1664), but nevertheless resulted in a treaty favorable to the Ottomans, the Peace of Vasvár, signed nine days later. Unlike his father, Köprülü Ahmed Fazil successfully completed the Ottoman-Venetian War (1645–1669), traveling personally to Crete to conduct the final phase of the siege of Candia (1666–1669). He then opened a new front and war against Poland, the Ottoman-Polish War (1672–1676). His ambitions were repeatedly frustrated by the superior generalship of Jan Sobieski: he lost badly at Chocim in November 1673, and again at Lwów (Lvov) in 1675, despite having superior numbers in each case. He died at the start of the 1676 campaign, and his plans and army were defeated yet again later in the year at Zuravno.

Raimondo Montecuccoli, (1609–1680).
Habsburg field marshal. An Italian, he entered Austrian and Imperial service in 1625. He saw extensive action during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), including at the Battles of Lutzen (1634), First Nördlingen (1634), and Wittstock (1636). He was captured by the Swedes at Wittstock and held for 30 months before being ransomed back to the emperor. He used the time to study all available literature on the “art of war,” ancient and contemporary. After his release he fought in Silesia and Lombardy. He fought against the Swedes in the last several years of the German war, notably at Zusmarshausen (1648). He fought Sweden again during the Second Northern War (1655–1660), alongside the “Great Elector” of Brandenburg, Friedrich-Wilhelm. Montecuccoli led Austrian armies against the Ottomans in the 1660s. He won at St. Gotthard (August 1, 1664), though more by Ottoman misfortune than any special skill on his part. Regardless, the victory brought him appointment as head of the Hofkriegsrat. He fought well against the French during the Dutch War (1672–1678). Feeling his age, he retired to write extensively on the subject of war and gained much influence thereby, deserved or not.

Like many minds of the age, Montecuccoli sought perfect order even in the sheer chaos of combat, believing that there were immutable “laws of war” that might be discovered and codified. This approach to war was much approved by the salon set and in studies of the good professors of the Sorbonne and The Hague, but it bore no relation to actual warfare then or since. For instance, Montecuccoli proposed a law of war that established a perfectly-sized Imperial army of 28,000 foot and 22,000 horse to face any opposing Ottoman force, of whatever size or makeup. He was more right in famously declaring that the precondition of successful war making was having enough money. As for the problem of finding soldiers to feed into the Imperial war machine he was busy crafting in theory, Montecuccoli wrote that all “orphans, bastards, beggars, and paupers” cared for by charitable orders or in hospices should be swept into the Army. This was far from the later concept of the “nation in arms” or the ancient one of a natural nobility of warriors.

Montecuccoli came out of retirement to fence with Turenne in a prolonged war of maneuver in Germany during the campaign of 1673. He joined the future William III to besiege Bonn that November. Montecuccoli lost a campaign of maneuver to Turenne during the summer of 1675. By July he was short on food and fodder, and in full retreat. Turenne tried to force battle at Sasbach on July 27, but before the fight got underway, he was killed by an Imperial cannonball. Montecuccoli retired for the final time a few months later, the same year as the Great Condé. Widely regarded and hailed by earlier historians as a brilliantly skillful practitioner of the art of 17th-century positional warfare, his reputation may exceed what is deserved. It has been downgraded in more recent studies of his campaigns and especially of his writings on war.

Battle of St. Gotthard, (August 1, 1664).
A Habsburg army reinforced by French troops and Rhinelanders to a total of about 40,000 men fought to victory over the Ottomans and their Tatar allies at St. Gotthard, a small village in Hungary near the Styrian border. The Habsburgs were led by Montecuccoli, who commanded about one-quarter of the Allied troops. Before the Allies arrived, the Ottomans had thrown a rickety bridge over the Raba river, gaining a foothold on the far side. The bridge collapsed, however, forcing the Ottomans to abandon the bridgehead. Tatars helped extricate infantry from forward positions, mounting foot soldiers on the extra horses that always accompanied Tatar fighters into battle. Failure of the bridge was compounded by tactical errors that decided the outcome of the fight, rather than by any supposed or later-reported brilliance on the part of Montecuccoli, as was once widely thought among military historians. A young Charles V also saw action at St. Gotthard, leading a cavalry charge against the Ottoman left. The result contributed to negotiation of the Peace of Vasvár (August 10, 1664), which turned into a 20-year Habsburg-Ottoman truce. This conclusion was secured only in part by military action; Leopold I also bought peace by paying a tribute to the sultan of 200,000 florins.

Mecklenburg Uniforms in Turkish War 1663-64

The Turkish War of 1663-64 for which a Mecklenburg’s Military triplum was agreed and to leave in March 1664. In actual fact Mecklenburg only contributed 100 horse under Lt. Col. von Schack and 200 foot under Captain von Bibow. The infantry was a company of the regiment under Col. Rudolf von Ende from Magdeburg, the 3rd regiment of foot. One third of the foot carried pikes, the rest muskets.

The companies marched to the rendezvous at Großen-Salza were attached to their regiments and marched to Vienna by way of Thüringen, Vogtland, Bohemia and lower Austria crossing the Danube at Vienna on 16th June. After being mustered by the Margrave of Baden they went on to Hungary where they fought in the battle of St. Gotthard on 1st August 1664, being among the first to attack and loosing their colonel in the battle. The squadrons of von Schack lost 3 officers and 8 troopers dead, 2 NCOs and 39 troopers missing, of these 4 Mecklenburgers. The regiment von Ende had lost not only the colonel but was almost destroyed. Only two officers were left, Captain Wiesener and the Mecklenburger Captain von Bibow who took over command of the rest. His company had lost 2 officers, 3 NCOs and 68 men dead or missing. By the end of September the horse had only 25 men primaplana and 66 troopers, the foot only 2 officers and 74 NCOs and other ranks. After the peace of Vasvar they were sent home on 13th October, the infantry reaching Mecklenburg on 12th, the cavalry on 15th December.

DANISH-SWEDISH WAR

The Battle of Oland (30-31 May 1564) was an important episode in the bitter Swedish-Danish struggle of 1563-70. The Swedes lost their new flagship, the Mars, after repeated attacks by the Danish ships and their Lubeck allies under Herlof Trolle. The Mars was successfully boarded on the second day of the battle, caught fire, and blew up. Both fleets then withdrew for repairs.

In the Baltic in the Sixteenth Century, there was conflict between Denmark and Sweden, including a long period of war from 1501 to 1520 when the Oldenburg kings, who ruled in Denmark and Norway, tried to gain control over Sweden. In 1517, Christian II started a series of intensified attempts to gain control over Sweden. In 1524, the Danes recognized Gustavus Vasa as King of Sweden. Gustavus joined Frederick I of Denmark in defeating Lubeck and resisting an attempt by Christian II to regain the Danish throne (1534-36), but in 1563 the two powers went to war. Sweden's sole outlet to the North Sea, Alvsborg (Gothenburg), fell to the Danes in 1563, prompting Erik XIV of Sweden to seek a new route through southern Norway. Trondheim fell to the Swedes in 1564, much of southern Norway was overrun in 1567 and Oslo was taken, but the Swedes were held at Akershus. From 1565 until 1569 the Swedes held Varberg, to the south of Alvsborg.

Erik relied on native troops, which he transformed by training them in the combined use of pikes and firearms in linear formations. He made the pike the basis of offensive infantry tactics. Frederick II of Denmark used German mercenaries who were usually more successful, severely defeating the Swedes at Axtorna: Erik's troops fought well there but were poorly commanded. The Danish army managed to advance as far as Norrkoping in late 1567 before being forced to retreat by the weather.

At sea, 1563-70 saw the first modem naval war between sailing battle fleets in European waters, as Denmark and Sweden fought for control of the invasion routes. The Danes were supported by the semi-independent German city of Lubeck - no longer the great sea power it had been but still able to make an important contribution. Both sides sought to destroy the opposing fleet, and seven battles were fought between 1563 and 1566. The Swedes, under Klas Kristersson Hom, with their modem bronze artillery, systematically used stand-off gunfire to block Danish boarding tactics: sheer weight of metal was decisive. Both navies expanded greatly, and in the late 1560s the Swedes may have had the largest sailing fleet of the period. Both sides were exhausted by 1568, and peace was agreed without any territorial gains to either side.

Warfare on land in the Baltic involved relatively few battles. Sieges were more important, while devastation was used to reduce opponents' fighting capability. This conflict is far more than a footnote to the history of European warfare, being an important reminder of the growing prominence of Sweden and Russia. The tactics employed were less formalistic than those developed in western Europe, and the troops sometimes less specialized in weaponry, but their warfare was well-suited to the eastern European military circumstances of great distances and small populations.

BATTLE OF MOHACS 29 AUGUST 1526

Twice in the sixteenth century, foolish military initiatives by young monarchs led to the end of their lives and of the independence of important states. Sebastian of Portugal was crushed by the Moroccans at Alcazarquivir in 1578. In 1526, Louis II of Hungary confronted the powerful forces of Suleiman the Magnificent. Although Suleiman had set off in April 1526, bad weather delayed his crossing of the river Drava until late August. The Hungarians, however, in part due to slow preparations, were divided, poorly led and short of infantry, and they failed either to contest the Drava crossing or to retire to Buda and allow the Ottomans to exhaust their resources in a difficult siege. Instead they deployed behind the Borza, a small tributary of the Danube, and rather than waiting on the defensive, their heavy cavalry advanced.

The Hungarian charge (1) pushed back the Ottoman sipahis (cavalry) of Rumelia, but halted when Turkish troops advanced on their flank. Louis then led the remainder of his cavalry in a second attack which drove through the sipahis of Anatolia, but was stopped by the janissaries and cannon. Their fITe caused havoc, and the Hungarians, their dynamism spent, were then attacked in front and rear by the more numerous Turkish forces. Louis and most of his aristocracy died on the battlefield or in the nearby Danube marshes, Louis drowning while trying to swim across a river in armour, and few of his army escaped (3). Suleiman swept on to Buda, which fell ten days later. The days of independent Hungary were numbered. Louis had no children, and his inheritance was to be contested by his brother-in-law Archduke Ferdinand and by the Ottomans. Suleiman, however, initially decided not to annex Hungary but rather to accept the suggestion by John Zapolya, Prince of Transylvania, who was opposed to the Habsburgs, that he and his supporters be left in control in return for an acknowledgement of Ottoman suzerainty and a payment of tribute. Zapolya was chosen King of Hungary at the Tokay diet in 1527, but the Habsburgs under Ferdinand defeated him in 1527, leading to renewed Ottoman intervention in 1528-29.