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Pike Square
The pike square (German: ''Gevierthaufen'', lit. 'square crowd', or ''Gewalthaufen'' lit. 'crowd of force') was a military tactical formation in which 10 rows of men in 10 columns wielding pikes, was developed by the Swiss Confederacy during the 14th century for use by its infantry. History The pike square was used to devastating effect at the Battle of Nancy against Charles the Bold of Burgundy in 1477, when the Swiss defeated a smaller but more powerful armored cavalry force. The battle is generally seen as one of the turning points that established the infantry as the primary fighting arm in European warfare from the 16th century onwards. The Burgundian compagnie d'ordonnance was a formidable combined arms force relying on close cooperation between heavily armored knights, dismounted men-at-arms, a variety of ranged troops including archers and crossbowmen, and an early form of field artillery. It was one of the most feared and most effective ground forces in 15th-century ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kapelle Sempach Gemälde
Kapelle () is a municipality and a town in the southwestern Netherlands on Zuid-Beveland. As of January 2017, the municipality's population amounts to 12,620. Population centers Topography ''The municipality of Kapelle, June 2015'' Transport * Kapelle-Biezelinge railway station Famous people * Annie M.G. Schmidt (1911 in Kapelle – 1995) a Dutch writer, the mother of the Dutch theatrical song * Jan Elburg (born 1919 in Wemeldinge – 1992) a Dutch poet * Jan Peter Balkenende (born 1956 Biezelinge) a retired politician, Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 2002 to 2010 * Jan Kees de Jager (born 1969 in Kapelle) a retired Dutch politician, former Dutch finance minister Sport * François Marits (1884 in Kapelle – 1945) a Dutch sports shooter, competed at the 1924 Summer Olympics * Jo de Roo Johan De Roo (born 5 July 1937) is a Dutch former professional road racing cyclist between 1958 and 1968. During 11 seasons as a professional he had six victories in sing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crossbow
A crossbow is a ranged weapon using an elastic launching device consisting of a bow-like assembly called a ''prod'', mounted horizontally on a main frame called a ''tiller'', which is hand-held in a similar fashion to the stock of a long firearm. Crossbows shoot arrow-like projectiles called '' bolts'' or ''quarrels''. A person who shoots crossbow is called a ''crossbowman'' or an '' arbalist'' (after the arbalest, a European crossbow variant used during the 12th century). Although crossbows and bows use the same launch principle, the difference is that an archer must maintain a bow's draw manually by pitching the bowstring with fingers, pulling it back with arm and back muscles and then holding that same form in order to aim (which distresses the body and demands significant physical strength and stamina); while a crossbow utilizes a locking mechanism to maintain the draw, limiting the shooter's exertion to only pulling the string into lock and then releasing the shot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musket
A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually disappeared as the use of heavy armour declined, but ''musket'' continued as the generic term for smoothbore long guns until the mid-19th century. In turn, this style of musket was retired in the 19th century when rifled muskets (simply called rifles in modern terminology) using the Minié ball (invented by Claude-Étienne Minié in 1849) became common. The development of breech-loading firearms using self-contained cartridges (introduced by Casimir Lefaucheux in 1835) and the first reliable repeating rifles produced by Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1860 also led to their demise. By the time that repeating rifles became common, they were known as simply "rifles", ending the era of the musket. Etymology According to the Online Et ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pike And Shot
Pike and shot was a historical infantry tactical formation that first appeared during the Italian Wars of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and was used until the development of the bayonet in the late 17th century. This type of formation combined soldiers armed with pikes and soldiers armed with arquebuses and/or muskets. Other weapons such as swords, halberds, and crossbows were also sometimes implemented. The formation was initially developed by the armies of the Holy Roman Empire (''Landsknechte'') and of the Spanish Crown (''Tercios''), and later by the Dutch and Swedish armies in the 17th century. Origin By the end of the fifteenth century, late-medieval troop types that had proven most successful in the Hundred Years' War and Burgundian Wars dominated European warfare, especially the heavily armoured ''gendarme'' (a professional version of the medieval knight), the Swiss and Landsknecht mercenary pikemen. The emerging artillery corps of heavy cannons was a rapidly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late Medieval
The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Renaissance). Around 1300, centuries of prosperity and growth in Europe came to a halt. A series of famines and plagues, including the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death, reduced the population to around half of what it had been before the calamities. Along with depopulation came social unrest and endemic warfare. France and England experienced serious peasant uprisings, such as the Jacquerie and the Peasants' Revolt, as well as over a century of intermittent conflict, the Hundred Years' War. To add to the many problems of the period, the unity of the Catholic Church was temporarily shattered by the Western Schism. Collectively, those events are sometimes called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages. Despite the crises, the 14th ce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gendarme (historical)
A ''gendarme'' was a heavy cavalryman of noble birth, primarily serving in the French army from the Late Middle Ages to the Early Modern period. Heirs to the knights of French medieval feudal armies, French Gendarmes also enjoyed a stellar reputation and were regarded as the finest European heavy cavalry force until the decline of chivalric ideals largely due to the ever-evolving developments in gunpowder technology. They provided the Kings of France with a potent regular force of armored lancers which, when properly employed, dominated late medieval and early modern battlefields. Their symbolic demise is generally considered to be the Battle of Pavia, which inversely is seen as confirming the rise of the Spanish Tercios as the new dominant military force in Europe. Etymology The word ''gendarme'' derives originally from the French ''homme d'armes'' (man-at-arms), plural of which is ''gens d'armes''. The plural sense was later shortened to ''gendarmes'' and a singular mad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heavy Cavalry
Heavy cavalry was a class of cavalry intended to deliver a battlefield charge and also to act as a Military reserve, tactical reserve; they are also often termed ''shock cavalry''. Although their equipment differed greatly depending on the region and historical period, heavy cavalry were generally mounted on large powerful warhorses, wore body armor, and armed with either lances, swords, Mace (bludgeon), maces, flail (weapon), flails (disputed), battle axes, or war hammers; their mounts may also have been protected by barding. They were distinct from light cavalry, who were intended for Reconnaissance, scouting, Screening (tactical), screening, and skirmishing. History of heavy cavalry Persians Iranian tribes such as the Massagetae were believed to be the originator of the class of heavy cavalry known as cataphract. During the time of Achaemenid Empire, Achaemenid Persia cavalry was the elite arm of service (as was the case in most civilizations), and many Persian ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian Wars
The Italian Wars, also known as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts covering the period 1494 to 1559, fought mostly in the Italian peninsula, but later expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland and the Mediterranean Sea. The primary belligerents were the Valois kings of France, and their Habsburg opponents in the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. They were supported by various Italian states at different stages of the war, with limited involvement from England and the Ottoman Empire. The Italic League established in 1454 achieved a balance of power in Italy, but fell apart after the death of its chief architect, Lorenzo de' Medici, in 1492. Combined with the ambition of Ludovico Sforza, its collapse allowed Charles VIII of France to invade Naples in 1494, which drew in Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Despite being forced to withdraw in 1495, Charles showed the Italian states were wealthy, but vulnerable due to political divisions, making parts of Italy a battlegr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burgundians
The Burgundians ( la, Burgundes, Burgundiōnes, Burgundī; on, Burgundar; ang, Burgendas; grc-gre, Βούργουνδοι) were an early Germanic tribe or group of tribes. They appeared in the middle Rhine region, near the Roman Empire, and were later moved into the empire, in the western Alps and eastern Gaul. They were possibly mentioned much earlier in the time of the Roman Empire as living in part of the region of Germania that is now part of Poland. The Burgundians are first mentioned together with the Alamanni as early as the 11th panegyric to emperor Maximian given in Trier in 291, and referring to events that must have happened between 248 and 291, and they apparently remained neighbours for centuries. By 411 a Burgundian group had established themselves on the Rhine, between Franks and Alamanni, holding the cities of Worms, Speyer, and Strasbourg. In 436, Aëtius defeated the Burgundians on the Rhine with the help of Hunnish forces, and then in 443, he re-settle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Cry
A battle cry or war cry is a yell or chant taken up in battle, usually by members of the same combatant group. Battle cries are not necessarily articulate (e.g. "Eulaliaaaa!", "Alala"..), although they often aim to invoke patriotic or religious sentiment. Their purpose is a combination of arousing aggression and esprit de corps on one's own side and causing intimidation on the hostile side. Battle cries are a universal form of display behaviour (i.e., threat display) aiming at competitive advantage, ideally by overstating one's own aggressive potential to a point where the enemy prefers to avoid confrontation altogether and opts to flee. In order to overstate one's potential for aggression, battle cries need to be as loud as possible, and have historically often been amplified by acoustic devices such as horns, drums, conches, carnyxes, bagpipes, bugles, etc. (see also martial music). Battle cries are closely related to other behavioral patterns of human aggression, such as wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charge (warfare)
A charge is an offensive maneuver in battle in which combatants advance towards their enemy at their best speed in an attempt to engage in a decisive close combat. The charge is the dominant shock attack and has been the key tactic and decisive moment of many battles throughout history. Modern charges usually involve small groups of fireteams equipped with weapons with a high rate of fire and striking against individual defensive positions (such as a concertainer or bunker), instead of large groups of combatants charging another group or a fortified line. Infantry charges Ancient charges It may be assumed that the charge was practiced in prehistoric warfare, but clear evidence only comes with later literate societies. The tactics of the classical Greek phalanx included an ordered approach march, with a final charge to contact. Highland charge In response to the introduction of firearms, Irish and Scottish troops at the end of the 16th century developed a tactic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in late antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—most recently part of the Eastern Ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
