Talk:Battle of Marignano

Facts or fiction?

A beautifully written piece, but in strong need of inline citations. --Majorbolz (talk) 16:27, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Swiss

as far is i know, the swiss on the milan side were not simple mercenaries. they fought there by order of the "Tagsatzung"(government of the swiss confederation) and so were kind of an official swiss army. --84.73.212.187 18:57, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

The Swiss role is presented somewhat differently, depending on which historian you read. It's clear that they were more involved politically than normal mercenaries; at the same time, the departure of some Swiss detachments that were paid off by Francis means that the Swiss were acting in the classic condottiere fashion rather than as an army of the Swiss Cantons themselves. How best to present this in the article is an valid point for discussion (but the article is in such a poor state that arguing over the exact wording may be a little premature). Kirill Lokshin 19:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Marignano established the superiority of French cast bronze artillery and cavalry over the until-then invincible phalanx tactics of the Swiss infantry.

This article presents no detailed account of the battle itself, and thus does not explain how artillery + cavalry > landsknecht 85.227.226.235 (talk) 11:04, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

It's hard to say that this battle estabilished any superiority at all, since, altough being the French/Venetian army numerically superior to the Swiss both in infantry and in cavalry, the balance of the battle was broken only by the further arrival of a force of about 300 light horsemen. If one, Marignano established the superiority of receiving reinforcements at the right moment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.26.216.209 (talk) 21:31, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

In reference to the mention of the "300 light horsemen" mentioned above, another wikipedia site, I.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolomeo_d%27Alviano Does mention and make a connection to this site, with the mention of "300 kinghts" under the leadership of Alviano! It has always struck me as confusing when I regularly find such obscene lack of co-ordination between information availabe via a mouse click, and the lack of the same information on the contributing site!69.92.23.64 (talk) 23:37, 26 April 2010 (UTC)Ronald L. Hughes

Seriously that statement sounds just wrong. Neither were the Swiss previously deemed invincble, nor a phalanx, nor is there any contemporary (or other reliable) source that later claims that cannon and cavalry prevail from there on (on the contrary the usage of Landsknechts - formed after the Swiss model - continues prominently for another 50 years). Once I have time I will rewrite that passage to a more neutral pow, unless someone here bring on some sources that support that statement.ASchudak (talk) 09:25, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Yeah. People tend to think as the Swiss as suddenly appearing on the European stage with the Burgundian Wars (1474-77) and the umiliating defeats they inflicted to Charles the Bold. But really the Confederation had been at war with the Duchy of Milan since 1403, alternatively winning or losing ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transalpine_campaigns_of_the_Old_Swiss_Confederacy ). Marignano had been only the final chapter of that long struggle. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.117.225.64 (talk) 12:04, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

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Wrong background information

Schiner didn't manage to convince all Swiss from fighting the battle. Around 10'000 Swiss soldiers accepted the deal which the French king had offered (details about the deal can be found in the German version of the article) and returned home. These were the troops from the cantons Bern, Solothurn, Freiburg, Biel and Wallis (thus their flags are also missing on all pictures). See German version for more information.

Sources

@Kansas Bear Are you serious right now? There has been a dead link sleeping right in the middle of the sources for months now. Hans included it alongside the random "6,000 archers", which turn out to be demi-lancers... based on a book which does not talk specifically about the Battle of Marignano but the composition of the French army in the late middle ages and early modern period based on the original Compagnies d'Ordonnance?

You specifically mentioned Clodfelter was an unreliable source.... Do you deem Tucker and Nolan to be unreliable as well? This is getting a bit out of hand no? Have you even verified the things I linked. You talked about not just linking books but linking pages as well, which I actually spent my evening doing and you just went around and removed them all because you deem one of 3 sources linked to not be credible? Are those not the numbers mentioned on those pages? There are literally zero source on the casualties section as it is right now... simply random numbers, nobody can actually verify. I actually sourced some and you go around removing them all. (Jules Agathias (talk) 22:22, 3 July 2020 (UTC))

The now dead italian source was archived actually. In fact just realized the archived Italian source totally matched those of Tucker, Nolan and Clodfelter......... (Jules Agathias (talk) 22:38, 3 July 2020 (UTC))

Michael Clodfelter, since you failed to write out the complete source, is just a writer, with no academic specialization in this field. Who are Tucker and Nolan? Last names are hardly anything to go on, especially when they are not listed in this article.

Why did you remove, Shaw, Christine, and Michael Mallett. The Italian Wars, 1494-1559: War, State and Society in Early Modern Europe. Routledge, 2019, ppg127. and Potter, David. Renaissance France at War: Armies, Culture and Society, C.1480-1560. Boydell & Brewer, 2009. ppg 228? Two completely written out sources and replaced it with last names of people that are not listed on this article? --Kansas Bear (talk) 22:55, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Also, what exactly are your intentions with this article? Here, you changed referenced figures citing, "Fallacious numbers which did not match the source. Horses were counted as men.", did you verify these numbers?? According to your last edit summary, "Fixed grammar issues. Waiting for a Kansas Bear to restore the sourced numbers once he verifies them..", did you verify Shaw&Mallet and Potter sources before you changed them on 21 April 2020?? Your editing history here seems very odd. Perhaps this requires the attention of an Admin.--Kansas Bear (talk) 23:12, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Morning! I did verify Potter's and could not find any specific numbers as elaborated on the page Marignano. By the way I was the one who originally elaborated the numbers of the Franco-Venetian forces to begin with

I later noticed the two credible sources added with the numbers revisited but wait....

In Potter's Renaissance France at War: Armies, Culture and Society, he evoked the general structure of the Compagnie d'Ordonnance and their evolution. He did not specifically dispatch the numbers at the battle of Marignano. Look it up please! French sources give 32,7000 as the total number who participated in the battle (not counting the 8,000 Venetian infantrymen and 1,000 venetian light cavalrymen who were not engaged while the 700 heavily armored horsemen of the late arriving venetian reinforcement forces did get involve and are included). This is the english wikipedia site and english is the lingua franca, how credible would I look if I were linking french archives most users here could not even read? Is it allowed? Because it would kind of make things super easy regarding my edits. I only opened an account here once I noticed the lack of information on many notable Walloon and French historical figures. Some of these pages are actually completely empty and I thought I could contribute. To come back to the original matter at hand, Potter, who was sourced by, Hans did not provide the numbers he put down there for that battle. He simply stated how a compagnie of gendarmes were more likely to be structured during that time period. Hans just went from there and guessed. He originally linked 6,000 light horses (which I admit looking back) probably implied "light horsemen" or "light cavalrymen" then talked about (referencing Potter again) how each French gendarme from the late 15th century was more likely to be escorted by "2 archers" (referencing I guess the units drafted by the Compagnies d'Ordonnance under Charles VII which led to the formation of the "Franc-archers") so he went from there and added 6,000 archers to the 3,000 gendarmes at Marignano, while linking demi-lancers of the early modern period as Franc-archers.

The whole thing made zero sense and I assumed because before turning it into 38,700 troops, he made a previous edit in which he linked 46,000+? troops or something along those lines, then switched it to 38,700 once I reverted the page.

Oh well, you can request the attention of whoever you want Kansas Bear if you find my contributions odd. Have a good week-end (Jules Agathias (talk) 07:43, 4 July 2020 (UTC))

Wow..... @Kansas Bear I am a total moron. I am so sorry! I am still having a hard time with the whole referencing sources thing. I thought the things I linked would make the books appear but they didn't. Just consulted my previous edit again and clicked on the sources....... Simply names, dates, and pages hahahaha. You are totally right, I don't look credible at all. I will fix it soon enough. All of this back and forth was for nothing. I thought you were being disingenious but that's on me. Dearest apologies! I'll add them. Jules Agathias (talk) 07:53, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Where do you get 32,000 for the Tucker source? Page 484, states Francis invaded with an army of 30,000. --Kansas Bear (talk) 17:44, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I know Tucker states 30,000. I simply took into account Clodfelter claim's that it might have been "a little above" 30,000 and decided to give the maximum estimates to be fair to the Swiss side... And 32,000 french troops is the number in most francophones sources (with 17,000 to 19,000 german mercenaries depending on the source, 10,000 french infantry and 2,500 to 3,000 gendarmes depending on the source). I was simply trying to be consistent and without bias. I've seen lower numbers for the Swiss troops but with no sources at all. 22,200 are the highest I've seen. So I just put the maximum down there for France as well (Jules Agathias (talk) 00:48, 5 July 2020 (UTC))

Yeah, you might want to read WP:SYNTHESIS. We can not combine two sources to make original information. Also, when using sources for figures, usually a low number and high number is probably all that is really needed.

• "And 32,000 french troops is the number in most francophones sources.."

I only care if the sources are reliable. Once you cross the line into questionable sources, every person in the world will dig up some obscure website to push their figure(s) into the article. --Kansas Bear (talk) 01:15, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Alright then I'll put the exact number stipulated by Tucker as I've noticed you removed Clodfelter from the sources anyway (Jules Agathias (talk) 13:14, 5 July 2020 (UTC))