Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 6, 2007



The Battle of Ceresole was fought outside the village of Ceresole d'Alba in the Piedmont on April 11, 1544, during the Italian War of 1542. In a lengthy engagement that historian Bert Hall characterized as "marvelously confused", a French army under François de Vendôme, Count of Enghien, defeated the Spanish-Imperial army of Alfonso d'Avalos d'Aquino, Marquis del Vasto. Despite inflicting massive casualties on the Imperial troops, the French failed to exploit the victory, as Enghien was unable to take Milan after much of his army was recalled to face an Anglo-Imperial invasion of France. Ceresole was one of the few pitched battles during the latter half of the Italian Wars. Known among military historians chiefly for the "great slaughter" that occurred when columns of intermingled arquebusiers and pikemen met in the center, it also demonstrates the continuing role of traditional heavy cavalry on a battlefield largely dominated by the emerging pike and shot infantry. (more...)

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