Battle of the Sesia River in 1524 was another defeat of the French in the Italian War of 1521-26, defeated by Imperial forces. During this battle, they also lost one of the finest French knights Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard, who fell on the battlefield, shot by an arquebus.
Despite their crushing defeat at Bicocca in 1522, the French king Francis I managed to send another big army to Italy in late 1523 led by Guillaume Gouffier, Lord of Bonnivet. Francis gained money for this new army by seizing properties of Charles III, Duke of Bourbon.
Charles of Bourbon was angered by this and abandoned the French king Francis, switching sides and entering emperor Charles V's service instead. Meanwhile a huge French army under Bonnivet, numbering around 35000 men including Swiss mercenaries marched into Italy to conquer Milan.
The Imperial forces under Prospero Colonna had barely half as many men, but Colonna was an experienced leader who patiently avoided battles and eventually stationed his army in the fortified city of Milan. Once again he wanted the French to exhaust themselves before battles.
The French once again had a problem of poor leadership as Bonnivet played into Colonna's game and had his army retreat to winterquarters to the west of Milan and delaying the campaign to next year. Meanwhile Imperial army received reinforcements by arrivals of Bourbon and Lannoy.
Charles de Lannoy arrived from Naples with fresh troops. He would assume command after the aged Colonna died that same year, and he continued using the same pragmatic and defensive approach while the French army was decimated by disease and lack of pay. A lot of Swiss left.
Lannoy now had a larger army than Bonnivet and decided to look for a decisive engagement on the open field. However this time, it was Bonnivet who didn't want it. Realizing the abysmal condition of his army, he decided to retreat to France. Lannoy was determined to pursue him.
As the French were crossing the river Sesia, Lannoy sent a vanguard consisting of light cavalry and mounted arquebusiers to catch the retreating French forces. This small force of Imperials was able to successfully harass the French who were retreating over the river very slowly.
The French prepared a counterattack on the Spanish and Italian arquebusiers who had dismounted uphill and assumed a defensive position. The French heavy cavalry charged, but on boggy terrain the charge was not as effective and arquebusiers managed to shoot down many.
Next the Swiss pikemen went on offensive but they too had a lot of casualties and were not effective as the arqubusiers retreated from them and then shot again from safer positions. They were also threatened by light cavalry from the flanks and had to retreat back.
In this situation, the French prepared another heavy cavalry attack, led by Pierre Terrail de Bayard, an inspiring veteran warrior reputed as the most chivalrous French. The charge was once again unsuccessful and Bayard himself died in the charge! He was shot down by an arquebus.
At that point, the main Imperial army had arrived and the French had no choice but to retreat in disorder and flee. Bonnivet's 1523-24 campaign was a total fiasco, a waste of money and men and another humiliating defeat for the French in a battle, on top of losing Bayard's life.
What makes this battle interesting is that is proved the effectiveness of skirmish gunpowder attacks which would continue to be used by Giovanni de Medici's Black Bands Italian mercenaries in the years that followed to great effect, as the wars would continue.
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It's wild how Denmark had colonies in India for more than 200 years from 1620 to 1869.
Fort Dansborg, built in 1620, still stands today in the Bay of Bengal.
They had forts, factories, trading posts. But they eventually sold their possessions to British Empire.
The Danish presence in India was of little significance to the major European powers as they presented neither a military nor a mercantile threat so they let them carve out their own niche.
A map of Danish trade routes in the region.
The operation was initially conducted by Danish East India Company.
But the early years of the Danish adventure in India in 1620s were horrible. Almost two-thirds of all the trading vessels dispatched from Denmark were lost.
English explorer John Smith, famous for his involvement in establishing the Jamestown colony in America in 1607.
His coat of arms featured the heads of three Ottoman soldiers whom he beheaded in duels while serving as a mercenary in Transylvania during the Long Turkish War.
John Smith is known today for his role in managing the colony of Jamestown in Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America, and his connection with a Powhatan woman called Pocahontas.
But John Smith was also a powerful warrior and mercenary prior to that.
Born in England, he set off to sea in 1596 at age 16 after his father died to become a mercenary, fighting for the French against the Spanish.
He was looking for what he called "brave adventures".
After a truce was made in 1598, he joined a French pirate crew in Mediterranean.
Many Irishmen served the Habsburgs over centuries and distinguished themselves.
Over 100 Irishmen were field marshals, generals, or admirals in the Austrian Army!
Some of the illustrious Irish warriors serving the Habsburg emperors. 🧵
In 1853 there was an assassination attempt on emperor Franz Joseph in Vienna by a Hungarian nationalist.
But the emperor's life was saved by Count Maximilian Karl Lamoral O'Donnell who cut the assassin down with a sabre.
O'Donnell was a descendant of Irish nobility!
Maximilian ancestors -the powerful O'Donnell clan- left Ireland during the Flight of the Earls in 1607, when Irish earls and their followers left Ireland in the aftermath of their defeat against the English Crown in the Nine Years' War in 1603.
Many inns appeared in medieval Europe, offering foods, drinks and a place to socialize, as well as lodging for travelers, helping transportation logistics.
In this thread I will present some of the old medieval inns that survived to this day, from various European countries!🧵
The George Inn. Norton St Philip in Somerset, England 🏴.
Built in 14th century and completed in 15th century, this is a proper medieval inn.
Being an innkeeper was a respected social position. In medieval England, innkeepers were generally wealthy and held influence in towns!
Stiftskeller St. Peter. St Peter's Abbey in Salzburg, Austria 🇦🇹.
Often mentioned as the oldest inn in Central Europe, for it was first mentioned in 803 in a letter to Charlemagne.
It operated as part of the monastery to give food to pilgrims. Now a prestigious restaurant.
This is the Mercedes-Benz W125 Rekordwagen made in 1937.
I was always fascinated with this car.
It's crazy how in 1938 this car recorded a speed of 432.7 km/h (268.9 mph). This remained the fastest ever officially timed speed on a public road until broken in 2017.
The record was set by German driver Rudolf Caracciola who drove this car on the Reichs-Autobahn A5 between Frankfurt and Darmstadt on 28 January 1938.
This reflected the obsession with breaking records and showcasing industrial prowess of nations at the time.
The onlookers who observed the spectacle of a car racing at astonishing 432.7 km/h past them also noted the brutal boom of the side spewing exhaust stacks as the silver car hurtled past.
It must have been an incredible spectacle to witness!