Slitherine

The Dutch Army and the Military Revolutions 1588 - 1688 by Olaf van Nimwegen. This is the definitive work on the Dutch in the 80 Years War and full of interesting stuff on the pike, shot, cavalry, artillery and siege tactics of the day. You can only read the first 50 or so pages online via Google Books. A pity the full book costs £70 minimum to buy !
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WYMy ... ns&f=false

The Battlefields of Germany by Colonel G.B. Malleson 1884 - Old now and replaced by Guthrie's two volumes on the Thirty Years War, but still a good read.
http://archive.org/details/battlefieldsofge00malluoft

Montluc's reputation was made by his Commentaires de Messire Blaise de Montluc (Bordeaux, 1592), in which he described his fifty years of service (1521–1574). This book, the "soldier's Bible" (or "breviary," according to others), as Henry IV called it, is one of many books of memoirs produced by the gentry of France at that time. It is said to have been dictated, which may account for the style.

(Wiki [en] or Wiki [fr].)

Online in french.

The Commentaires of Blaise de Monluc, written between 1570 and 1576. and published in 1592, are a good example of the new kind of memoirs. The author was born in 1501 in Gascony, a province reputed to be fertile only in soldiers. It has provided literature with a type, the cadet de Gascogne, an impoverished young adventurer, ambitious, brave and boastful. The best known examples are d’Artagnan and Cyrano de Bergerac. Monluc was such a man. His military career began in the declining years of chivalry and his account of his early experiences beyond the Alps is full of the enthusiasm that drove young men to seek fame and glory on the battlefields of Italy. In 1525 he was taken prisoner at Pavia, but, being too poor to warrant a ransom, he was soon released. Two years later, he shared marshal Lautrec’s defeat in Naples and was severely wounded. In 1534 he served in one of Francis 1’s provincial legions and in the 1540s fought in Piedmont. One of his most graphic accounts concerns his role on the eve of the French victory at Cerisole, when he was sent to the king’s court to seek his permission to engage the enemy in battle.

Under Henry II, Monluc attached himself to the rising star of Francois duc de Guise, and, in 1554, he defended Siena, which had rebelled against its Florentine overlord. His account of the siege is the best-known chapter of his memoirs.’ On returning to France, he was appointed colonel-general of the infantry and knighted. After the Peace of CateauCambrCsis, however, he fell upon hard times. He toyed with the idea of joining the Huguenots in south-west France, but soon perceived that his personal interests were likely to be better served by supporting the Catholic faith. As the king’s lieutenant-general in Guyenne, he kept the peace for five years at the cost of much blood. He was accompanied everywhere by two executioners who administered summary justice at his bidding. Monluc was accused by his enemies of needless brutality and administrative corruption. They also called him a rapist (fiorceur defilles). At the age of seventy he was disfigured by a shot from an arquebus and obliged to wear a mask for the rest of his life. On being relieved of his governorship, he turned into a lonely and embittered old man. He died in 1577.

R. J. Knecht, "The sword and the pen: Blaise de Monluc and his Commentaires".

The English Civil War 1642-1651: An Illustrated Military History by Philip Haythornthwaite.

https://archive.org/details/PhilipJ.Hay ... BookFi.org

The Fall of The Medieval Kingdom of Hungary: Mohacs 1526 - Buda 1541

http://www.hungarianhistory.com/lib/warso/

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... ZVWyl91ttj (Mostly in french.)

"1688-1715. Le Grand Tournant. Guerre et équilibres stratégiques à la fin du règne de Louis XIV

Jeudi 19 novembre
9h30 Accueil par Pierre Laugeay, Chef du Service historique de la Défense
9h40 Introduction
Hervé Drévillon (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) et Bertrand Fonck (SHD)
10h00 Des pratiques guerrières en mutation, prés. Bertrand Fonck (SHD)
D’une guerre à l’autre, le double retard de l’infanterie française (1688-1715), par Boris Bouget (musée de l’Armée) « Le bras droit des armées » : la cavalerie dans les dernières guerres de Louis XIV, par Frédéric Chauviré (CERHIO)
11h00 Discussion et pause
11h30 Pour une histoire-campagne, prés. Hervé Drévillon (Université Paris 1)
Le duc de Vendôme en Italie (1702-1706), par Fadi El Hage (IHMC/Université Paris 1)
A l’aube de la campagne : l’impact du quartier d’hiver dans le déroulement de la campagne de Flandre de 1712, par François Royal (SHD)
12h30 Discussion
14h15 Batailles, sièges et usages de la violence, prés. Olivier Chaline (Université Paris-Sorbonne)
Au cœur de la bataille : l’expérience des combats de la guerre de Succession d’Espagne, par Clément Oury (Centre ISSN International)
Louis XIV aimait-il trop la bataille ?, par Jamel Ostwald (Eastern Connecticut State University) [in english]
Le sort des vaincus pendant les guerres de Louis XIV : les limites de la culture de la reddition honorable, par Paul Vo-Ha (Université Paris 1)
15h45 Discussion et pause
16h15 Regards croisés, prés. Guy Rowlands (University of Saint-Andrews)
Louis XIV, ennemi de la Chrétienté. Le roi noirci par ses adversaires pendant la guerre de la Ligue d’Augsbourg, par Isaure Boitel (Université de Picardie – Jules Verne) Repenser la Boyne : regards croisés, France-Irlande, par Nathalie Genet-Rouffiac (Ministère de la Défense)
17h15 Discussion
17h45 Présentation de documents d’archives et de la bibliothèque du SHD

Vendredi 20 novembre
9h30 Les contraintes stratégiques et logistiques de la guerre, prés. Michèle Virol (Université de Rouen)
Les enjeux géostratégiques des différents théâtres d’opérations de la France sous Louis XIV, par Jean-Philippe Cénat
The Failure of Bourbon Empire in Europe : the Logistics of French Defeat and Survival in the War of the Spanish Succession, par Guy Rowlands (University of Saint-Andrews)
10h30 Discussion et pause
11h00 Un temps de reconfigurations géopolitiques, prés. Jean-Philippe Cénat
L’histoire d’un déclin ou les limites de la puissance ? La France face aux reconfigurations géopolitiques de l’Europe du Nord, au tournant des XVIIe et XVIIIe
siècles, par Eric Schnakenbourg (Université de Nantes)
Le théâtre atlantique durant la seconde partie du règne louisquatorzien : bilan naval et colonial, par Philippe Hrodej (Université de Bretagne Sud)
12h00 Discussion
14h00 Discours et représentations de la guerre, prés. Charles-Edouard Levillain (Université Paris-Diderot)
La « désolation du Palatinat » (1688-1689) : du scandale à l’évènement, par Emilie Dosquet (Paris 1)
Peindre la guerre, 1688-1715, par Bertrand Fonck (SHD)
15h00 Discussion et pause
16h00 Conférence de clôture, présentée par Hervé Drévillon (Université Paris 1)
The Wars of Louis XIV : the Making of, par John A. Lynn (University of Illinois)
16h30 Discussion"

War and music at the time of Louis XIV : https://youtu.be/3-soCCy6Nvs

Contemporary accounts of battles are often incomplete or even erroneous because they reflect the—often biased—viewpoints of the authors. Battlefield archaeology faces the task of compiling an historical analysis of a battle and of gathering all the available facts. Besides cultural historical evidence and artefacts, the human remains of those who have fallen in battle also provide invaluable information. In studying mass graves from a military context, the injury types and patterns are significant. They allow us to reconstruct the circumstances surrounding the soldiers’ deaths and provide information on the hostilities that occurred on the battlefield. One such mass grave was discovered in 2011 at Lützen, Saxony-Anhalt (Germany). Based on its geographical location and on the results obtained from archaeological examinations carried out in the area, the grave could be dated to the Thirty Years War (1618–1648). Further archaeological research confirmed that the dead had been soldiers from the Battle of Lützen (1632). The mass grave was block-lifted and then comprehensively examined at the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle (Saale). As well as osteological examinations to determine age, sex, height, state of health, i.e. diseases or injuries, imaging methods were also employed and histological and isotopic analyses carried out. The focus of this study was on the injuries sustained by the soldiers both prior to and during the battle. The results revealed that the 47 deceased had been between the ages of 15 and 50 when they died. Numerous healed injuries showed that the men had often been involved in violent encounters. Approximately three in every four soldiers had injuries that could have been fatal. Wounds inflicted by handguns, particularly to the skull, were predominant. The integrative analysis of the archaeological and anthropological data allowed us to conclude that the majority had been killed during a cavalry attack.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0178252#

Scottish Renaissance Armies 1513-1550 by Jonathan Cooper. Illustrated by Graham Turner.

https://archive.org/details/ScottishRen ... s1513-1550

I found this youtube channel recently. It has fun animated history maps of pike and shot military history topics: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA_f3k ... j6lOgbAVnQ

H. DREVILLON, O. WIEVIORKA, Histoire militaire de la France, 1 - Des Mérovingiens au Second Empire.
(ie. Military History of France, 1 - From the Merovingians to the Second Empire)

in French, not free but not expensive either. A first approach with a large time frame. Interesting.

Extract : https://www.amazon.fr/Histoire-militair ... 099&sr=8-1

To those who play P&S and like the Renaissance period : the Château de Chambord (constructed by king Francis I of France) will celebrate its 500th anniversary on 6 September 2019 !



Web resources :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Château_de_Chambord
https://www.chambord.org/en
http://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/360/chambord_360/
http://www.chambord-archeo.com

Some reference books about a subject close to Pike & Shot, the French Navy during the 17th century :

1) P. Villiers, The Saint-Philippe and the first-rates under Louis XIII to Louis XIV : account on the French ships armed with 70-110 guns built between 1624 and 1715.
2) J.C. Lemineur, The Ships of the Sun King : Louis XIV's Navy.
3) J.C. Lemineur, The Saint-Philippe, 1693 : monograph of a First-Rate with plans and history.
4) J.C. Lemineur, L'Aurore, 1697 : monograph of a light frigate with plans and history.

Most of these French books have already been translated in English. The others certainly will soon.
Btw the other books from the same publishing house are also of great use.

Some useful articles about warfare in Central and Eastern Europe:
1)http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/kluszyn.htm Article by Radosław Sikora, a specialist on the topic of Eastern European warfare and Winged Hussars, about Battle of Klushino
2)http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/dellAqua.htm )Illustrations from Polish artillery manual from XVI century
3)http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/chocim_1673.htm Article about second Batlle of Khotyn in 1673. Possibly the greatest victory of Jan Sobieski
4)http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/HowHussarFought.htm Interesting article about Winged Hussars discussing their tactics and how they were affected by pikes and firearms of the period

Museum of the Army, Invalides (France), rooms of artillery models, historical figurines (and musical instruments)



from 0'47'' on :

A very well-documented study (in French) about the military household of the king of France during the 17th century (after Henri IV's death), its units (French Guards, King's Musketeers, mounted Grenadiers...), history, composition, the battles they fought, etc. :

Rémi MASSON, Défendre le roi : La Maison militaire au XVIIe siècle, 2017, 420 p.

Petty warfare and light troops during the 17th century in Europe (in French) :

S. Picaud, La “guerre de partis” au xviie siècle en Europe, in Stratégique 2007/1 (N° 88), p. 99-144

S. Thion, French Armies of the Thirty Years War, 2013, p. 174

extract

Frédéric CHAUVIRÉ, Histoire de la cavalerie

A must read !
The author is Doctor of modern history, certified professor and associate researcher working on warfare practices and cavalry in early modern period.

It is an history of the cavalry from the Antiquity to WW1. It focuses on cavalry tactics and more specifically on the non-light cavalry charge. In a very interesting chapter, the author tries to define precisely what an impact is, defining the determining factors of a charge (weapons, gait...), its consequences (impact, 'threading', melee, evasion...) and their frequencies. An impact is not defined as two enemy units crashing into each other at full speed, but as a boarding made to break down the order of the enemy squadron while keeping its own cohesion : "The impact does not squash, it disperses".

PS : I don't know whether it is available in English.
Another book of his is about to be published in English.

Here are also two online papers written Fr. Chauviré about the non-light cavalry charge (in French) :

1) ‘Riding hell for leather’: the problem of speed in the cavalry charges from the 16th Century to 18th

Abstract
The cavalry charge constitutes, without a doubt, an essential aspect that needs to be studied in considering the military uses of horses in the modern era. Speed is one of the fundamental principles of any charge. It is important because, for one thing, it plays a vital part in determining whether the outcome will be a success or a failure. And for another thing, the speed of the charge is a function of a multiplicity of complex elements above the simple physical capacity of the horses involved. The training of the men and their mounts, the weight of the defensive protection they were wearing, the choice to be made between firearms or the sabre feature among the elements that explain why the cuirassiers at the beginning of the Thirty Years War advanced at the trot whereas the horsemen of Charles XII charged at the gallop. Beyond the simple estimation of speed, the analysis of the mechanisms that decided the choice of speeds and which explain the preference for one or another at a given moment enables us to gain a better historical understanding of how cavalry charges unfolded.

2) The Royal Household under Louis XIV, a troop of elite. Tactical Study.

Abstract
The Royal Household is the most prestigious unit of the royal army. But it is also a troop of the elite, feared on all battlefields. Its tactical superiority stems from the singularity of its combat doctrine. More maneuverable than regular regiments, it is also distinguished by the conduct of its charge: the choice of bladed weapons, the use of a quick gait, and the pursuit of shock. The qualities of this group explain why Louis XIV wanted to make it the privileged instrument of his glory. In large battles or combat, the [Royal] Household was systematically engaged at the point of the tactical formation. This doctrine of resolutely aggressive and bold employment, however, sometimes cost a high price.