Renaissance · Europe · War
1503
Spanish Rout the French at Garigliano
December 29, 1503
Gonzalo de Cordoba, the Great Captain, ambushed a French army along the frozen Garigliano River and drove them into the water. His disciplined formations of pikemen and arquebusiers presaged a new way of war. Naples would remain Spanish for two centuries. Gonzalo's innovative formations of pikemen and arquebusiers established the template for the Spanish tercio that dominated battlefields for a century.