Gonzalo de Cordoba, “El Gran Capitan”, Revolutionized Warfare With Firearms
Gunpowder revolutionized warfare, but not overnight. It took centuries before gunpowder weapons, first used in battle in the 14th century, came to dominate warfare in the 16th century. Canons were the first to leave their mark in the late 15th century, when Charles VIII of France invaded Italy and used mobile artillery to breach castle walls up and down the Italian Peninsula. Firearms, held back by their slow rate of fire, took slightly longer. Enter Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba (1453 – 1515), a Spanish general known as “El Gran Capitan” (Great Captain). He revolutionized warfare by innovating tactics that enabled firearms to dominate battlefields forever after.
Firearms had been in use for centuries before Cordoba appeared on the scene, but infantry armed with such weapons were handicapped by the length of time they took to reload. After discharging, firearms took so long to reload that cavalry, or even swift footed infantry, could close in and chop up firearms users before they managed to get off another shot.
Cordoba fixed that weakness at the Battle of Cerignola in 1503 by his liberal use of the arquebus and arquebusiers. In that engagement, El Gran Capitan led an army of 6300 men, including 1000 arquebusiers and 20 canon. They faced a French army of 9000 men, mostly heavy cavalry and elite Swiss pikemen, supported by 40 canon. Cordoba deployed his arquebusiers behind a ditch and field fortifications, and from that shelter, they won an upset victory by shooting the attackers to pieces. Battlefields were dominated by firearms-bearing infantry from then on.
Cordoba furthered that revolution by inventing formations to allow infantry equipped with firearms to operate without the benefit of fortifications. The result was the Tercio, a formation combining pikemen with arquebusiers, allowing the latter to shelter behind the pikes of the former while reloading. Spanish infantry in the Tercio formation would go on to dominate European battlefields for the next century.