I don’t like to claim that I am doing research on the Battle of Pavia 1525 as I am not going back to primary sources. However, I am doing a lot of reading about Pavia from various authors of different nationalities. In this post I hope to discuss how I plan to reconcile different accounts of the battle to create a table top event.
Books on Pavia
The following is a list of the main books that I am reading, I will list them in the order of importance to my recreation of the Battle:
- The Battle of Pavia, 24th February 1525 by Jean Giono. Translated from the French Le Desastre de Pavia.
- Da Marignano A Pavia. Le guerre italiane de Francesco 1 (1515-1525) by Luigi Casali and Marco Galandra (written in Italian)
- The Art of War in Italy 1494-1529. Taylor, F.L.
- History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century. Sir Charles Oman
- The Italian Wars. Volume 3. Francis I and the Battle of Pavia 1525. Massimo Predonzani and Vincenzo Alberici
- French Military Campaigns 1214 to 1542. By Colonel Hardy de Perini. Translated by G.F.Nafziger.
Problems with the books on Pavia 1525.
I have six books that form the bulk of my reading on Pavia 1525. The problem is that they give six substantially different accounts of the Battle of Pavia. The summary of what they all agree on is essentially the French were surrounding Pavia, the Imperials arrived and got into the park, the French gendarmes were killed by arquebusiers, the French King was captured and the imperials won. Details of the battlefield, initial deployments, strengths, movements and combats all vary. To recreate the battle by reconciling these accounts is all but impossible.
Some of these inconsistencies come from interpreting some of the source documents differently and from some of the writers of the source documents only having a limited understanding of what was going on around them. Others come from poor research and accepting long held false views of the battle.
Some of the accounts just don’t make sense when I read them. I can’t reconcile what they say with the actual layout of the battlefield and basic military tactics. I have spent many hours trying to resolve the accounts and recreate the battle on a map.
How to resolve the inconsistencies.
I had a moment of inspiration the other night when I was trying to resolve what happened at Pavia 1525 so that I can recreate the battle as a war-game on the table top. The inspiration was that I am not trying to recreate exactly what happened. All I need to do is have a good estimate of the main elements of each force, their abilities and their locations at the start of the Battle. Then I need to have a good understanding of the constraints of both the battlefield and the weather.
If I have a good understanding of these items, then the players are free to move their troops and fight in any way that they want. They can create their own Battle of Pavia. I don’t need to understand exactly when and where each unit moved in the real battle. I am not forcing players to move in a pre-ordained way. This methodology is consistent with the way that I run all of my games. I never force players to act in a certain way; they are the commanders.
The constraints of the battlefield terrain
In a previous post I discussed the location and the type of woods in the park. These woods and how I represent them are key to the flow of the battle.
The next key item is the walls of the park and their limitations. I accept the premise that the gates in the wall were not sufficiently large enough to allow an entire army to pass through, a breach had to be made. There is some discussion of this being in the North wall between Due Porte and Porta Pescarina. Others suggest that it is in the East Wall between Torre del Gallo and Due Porte.
I was originally of the opinion that the breach must have been in the North Wall near Porta Pescarina due to the restrictions of the woods. However, if we believe this view, we must also explain how the troops got outside the park near Porta Pescarina. To get there they must have also breached the wall near Due Porte to get into Parco Nuovo to the north. Due Porte means two doors – one entered the Parco Vecchio to the South and one entered the Parco Nuovo to the North.
I did not show the wall extending North from Due Porte to surround the Parco Nuovo on the above map. This omission was because I did not think that this wall was relevant at the time. I now believe that it was very important. There is no mention of this second breach in any of the texts so I do not believe that there were two breaches.
Instead I believe that the main Imperial army breached the park wall somewhere close to Due Porte to avoid the problems with the woods nearer Torre del Gallo. I also believe that the light arquebusiers initially heading rapidly to Castello Mirabello probably passed through Due Porte into Parco Nuovo and then entered Parco Vecchio through Porta Pescarina. As these troops were fewer and lighter, they could have gone through the gates and not required the wall to be breached.
The other main constraint is the Vernavola. Due to the wet weather this river was not passible in the Southern half of the park except around Torretta where there was a raised road. The river was only again passible at Castello Mirabello due to a road bridge. It was also passible further north between Cascina Repentita and Porta Pescarina. The other item of note around the river was the raised road running along the East of the river from Pavia to San Genesio. This road allowed travel through the marsh area and also provided a barrier for protection against artillery. Other than this raised road the battlefield was essentially flat.
The Vernavola is important to the recreation of the Battle as it provides an impassible barrier between the troops deployed to the East and those deployed to the West. Once the French troops are committed to one side of the river, they cannot influence the battle on the other side of the river. This terrain feature is also important when considered with the morning fog. Different elements of the French army are out of communication with each other. This means in the recreation of the battle it is important to not allow them to communicate with each other if they are not in contact.
Constraints of the weather.
The weather also provides a number of constraints. In addition to the morning fog, the late winter weather was cold and wet. Not only does it influence movement through the woods and prevent crossing the river, but it also impacts the ability of the pike blocks and heavy cavalry. The ground was wet and muddy. This prevented the pike blocks getting a grip and being as effective as usual. For the heavy cavalry, while it would not prevent an initial charge, the ground would tire the horses and prevent multiple devastating charges.
The initial locations of troops at Pavia 1525.
As I mentioned, the initial locations of troops is going to be key in setting up the game. Once we have decided where the Imperial troops can enter the park, which I discussed above, the French troop starting locations are the main issue.
Now many of the sources agree where the Swiss, Landsknechts, Black Band and Light Cavalry were located. So none of these are too much of a problem. The main issue is where the King and the Gendarmes were located at the start of the Battle. Jean Giono believes that they were near the Cascina Repentita and others believe that they were further South. I will discuss the locations of both sides in the next post.
Conclusion on gaming Pavia 1525.
Deciding on the battlefield and weather constraints, as well as starting positions of the troops allows a game to be played without a full understanding of the actual movements of all units in the battle. With the diverse accounts of the battle, this may be the best that is possible. There is plenty of scope for different war-games to interpret the vast amount of information available very differently. As a result I expect many different representations of Pavia by war-gamers in 2025.
An update to the painting, I am working on about 100 arquebusiers (Landsknecht and Italian) and 30 Spanish Jinetes. These are all additional troops and will be added to my collection.