Overview

The Battle of Pavia was fought on 24 February 1525 during the Italian War of 1521-1526 between the French army led personally by King Francis I and the imperial army of Charles V, consisting mainly of 12,000 German Landsknechts and 5,000 Spanish tercio soldiers, led on the field by the Flemish captain Charles de Lannoy, the Italian commander Fernando Francesco d'Avalos, and the French renegade Charles de Bourbon. The battle ended with a clear victory for the army of Emperor Charles V; King Francis I himself, after falling from his horse, was taken prisoner by the imperial forces. The battle marked a decisive moment in the wars for supremacy in Italy and affirmed the temporary supremacy of Charles V. From a military history perspective, the battle is important because it demonstrated the overwhelming superiority of the imperial infantry and, above all, its formations of Spanish (tercios) and German (Doppelsoldner) pikemen and arquebusiers, who destroyed the famous French heavy cavalry with their firepower.

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