Hello everyone, here is the starry sky wanderer who loves to read history. Today I would like to bring you a piece of knowledge about the Italian wars of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Since the fall of the Roman Empire, the Italian peninsula has been caught up in the struggle between various forces, from the various divided barbarian regimes established by the Germans, to the gradual unification of the Frankish kingdom, to the Byzantine Empire moving to the east, (mentioned in previous articles), etc., all of which have left their mark on this land, but their rule has not lasted long. Once at the heart of the empire, the land had been ravaged by centuries of war, with local nobles and people seeking to protect themselves by building small states on top of the ruins of the old Roman Empire and oscillating between other, more powerful and influential empires in search of a fragile peace.
But this fragile peace is doomed not to last. There were already many contradictions between these divided and autonomous states, such as Venice and Florence were aristocratic republics similar to ancient Rome and even ancient Greece, while the Duchy of Milan and the Duchy of Savoy were feudal monarchies enfeoffed by large countries, in addition to some tyrants and more special papal states (formed by the gift of land by the Frankish king), because of the political system, resources and even faith, these forces often attacked each other, giving foreign enemies the opportunity to take advantage.
First, war is brewing
At the end of the fourteenth century, the Hundred Years' War between England and France had come to an end, and France, which had been driving out the British, gradually recovered its national strength after a period of recuperation. At this time, King Louis XI of France began the road of expansion after the country was stabilized. First, he contacted the newly rising Swiss mercenaries, defeated and annexed the Burgundy Empire, and then annexed anjou, Provence and other countries, pushing the country to the Mediterranean coast. After the death of Louis XI, his successor son, Charles VIII, had even greater ambitions to take Italy into his pocket.
At the same time as the French conspiracy, the Kingdom of Spain also had its own ambitions. At this time, Spain was in the kingdom of Aragon, and its power was becoming stronger, and it controlled the Italian lands that france had ruled in the past, Namebleas and Sicily. The desire for expansion led Spain to covet Italian lands and at the same time to France.
At this time, the Holy Roman Empire was also full of interest in Italy, and at the same time very worried about the re-emergence of the old french franca, so it united with Spain to protect its own interests while jointly resisting the French invasion of Italy.
Thus, the rich and divided Italy thus fell victim to the struggle for hegemony among the great powers.
Second, the war opened
□ fuse
The beginning of the Italian war stemmed from the internal conflict in the Duchy of Milan: Giovan, duke of Milan at the time, feared that his uncle, the regent of the duchy, Lordvico, was trying to usurp the throne and asked his father-in-law, the King of Naples (under the control of the Kingdom of Spain), for help. Lordvico also sought the French as a patron and asked Charles VIII to send troops to assist. Charles VIII, who received the news, naturally gladly sent troops to open the prelude to the Italian War.
□ France to attack Italy
At the end of August 1494, Charles VIII led an army of 37,000 men, including elite knights and Swiss mercenaries, across the Alps into Italy, pointing directly at Nablis. The Duchy of Savoy, a traditional ally of France, also sent 23,000 troops to support it. Since the countries of north-central Italy did not dare to offend the French, the French army reached Naples smoothly and occupied Naples in February of the following year.
The expansion of France aroused the alarm of the Italian states and Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Soon in March 1495 they formed the Holy Alliance to attack France together. At the Battle of Fornovo on 6 July, the Allies defeated the French, and after a year of conquest, the French withdrew from Italy altogether. (Mentioned earlier in The Blood-Stained Halberd: The Rise of the Swiss Mercenaries) In 1498, Charles VIII died and was succeeded by his cousin Louis.
□ France has re-emerged in disputes
Charles VIII's successor, Louis XII, succeeded his cousin in the unfinished war and invaded Italy again in 1499. This time, Venice and other countries sided with France to help in the war, and the original pro-French regime, the Duchy of Milan, chose to confront France. France soon defeated Milan and other countries and once again set foot on the territory of Naples. But Spain immediately brought up a claim against Naples. In order to avoid direct conflict with Spain, Louis XII signed an agreement with Queen Isabella's husband, Ferdinand II, to divide Naples. But skirmishes continued, eventually restarting the war three years later. This time, the famous Spanish general Gonzalo, with his invention of the "Spanish Phalanx", defeated the French at the Battle of Cerinola in 1503. After successive defeats, the French army had to withdraw from Naples. Spain, on the other hand, took advantage of the opportunity, with Ferdinand II concurrently serving as King of Naples and beginning direct rule over Naples.
□ Cambrai Alliance War
In 1508, in order to contain the Venetian Republic, pope Julius II organized the Cambrai League. France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire all joined in trying to get a piece of the war. Louis XII, who was the most aggressive, defeated the main venetian army in 1509 and began to try to control Venice alone, which caused resentment in other countries. So Venice took the opportunity to unite with the original enemies and co-opted The French enemy, England, with the intention of expelling the French army from Italy. However, the Allies were defeated by the French at the Battle of Ravenna in 1511, which led to a direct mutiny in Venice to France. The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, sent troops to attack France and Venice, and finally France lost the Battle of Novara and withdrew from Italy the following year. In 1515, Louis XII died, ending the third phase.
□ François's war with Charles V
In 1519, charles V, the new Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, succeeded to the throne. Since his mother was Juana, princess of Spain, he also succeeded to the throne of Spain as King Carlos I of Spain (Carlos is Charles's pronunciation in Spanish). Spain became part of the empire and continued to fight against France. Louis XII's successor, François I, was also a cousin of Louis XII, and also inherited the ambitions of his predecessors for Italy. The two sides reignited war in Italy in 1521. In 1525. François I personally led an army against Milan, but was defeated by Charles V at the Battle of Pavia and took prisoner himself. Charles V forced François to sign a treaty ceding french territory in northern Italy, but François turned his face and denied him after his release. The two sides continued to fight, and the scale of the war became larger and larger, and England and other extraterritorial countries such as Denmark, Sweden, and Ottoman Turkey were also involved in the war, assisting the Holy Roman Empire and France respectively. Finally, in 1544, the French lost again and renounced the battle for Italy.
□ the war between France and the Spanish-dominated coalition
In 1547, François I died. His son Henry II could not forget the humiliation of his father's capture, and invaded Italy again in 1552, fighting charles V for supremacy. Following his father's example, he colluded with the Common Enemy of the Catholic Church, the Muslim regime of Ottoman Turkey, to wage war with the Holy Roman Empire, extending the battlefield to the entire Mediterranean coast. Henry II's actions aroused a common antipathy in Christendom, and the Holy Roman Empire formed an anti-French alliance with England, Mantua, and Florence, and even Savoy, a traditional ally of France, took sides with France and went to war with France. In the end, Henry II's struggle for supremacy again ended in failure.
Third, the end of the war and evaluation
The Italian War was a turning point in European history. It marked the beginning of the first hegemonic war in modern Europe and marked the beginning of the 300-year-long struggle between France and the Habsburgs. Other major European countries were involved in this European-wide competition, which objectively contributed to the transfer of the political and economic center of Europe from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, and the initial formation of a European state system centered on Western Europe laid the necessary foundation for the Westphalian state system finally established in 1648.
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