Italian Wars 1/10 - The 15th Century - Prelude

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The 15th century was a turbulent time. The Hundred Years War had just ended and Constantinople fell to the Ottomans when a new conflict that would dominate European politics for centuries just started brewing. This was the rivalry between the Valois kings of France and the Habsburgs who ruled the Holy Roman Empire. The cause of the conflict was the Burgundian inheritance. When Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy died without a male heir, Charles VIII, king of France contested Maximilian I, heir to the Holy Roman Empire for the vast Burgundian inheritance. The conflict inevitably moved to Italy, where Spain unified under Ferdinand and Isabella joined the conflict on the Habsburg side.

The Italian Wars was a series of conflicts that raged between 1494 and 1559 between the two major European powers, the Habsburgs who ruled the Holy Roman Empire and later Spain, and the Valois kings of France. At the height of the conflict the war involved Tudor England, the Ottoman Empire, Hungary, and all of Italy either as passive or active participants.
In terms of military tactics and strategy the Italian Wars saw the greatest innovations since the Roman Empire. Artillery finally came of age during the war prompting radical changes in terms of fortifications and battlefield tactics. Swiss pikemen, Landsknechts, and Spanish musketeers were amalgamated into a new type of standardized European infantry, the pike and shot formation. Cavalry although diminished in numbers, retained its place on the battlefield, being differentiated into heavy cavalry (men at arms), light cavalry and dragoons. In terms of strategy frontal medieval charges were replaced by careful maneuvering, the use of natural or man-made obstacles, and a keen attention to logistics. Commanders no longer fought in the front lines, but rather became managers of their armies. Politically the war shaped and reshaped the destinies of European countries for centuries to come.

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0:00 Welcome to the Renaissance
3:31 Burgundian Wars
5:34 Maximilian and Mary the Rich
6:52 Treaty of Senlis
8:27 Philip the Handsome and Joanna of Castile


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