War: A History in 100 Battles. Richard Overy

brother, Edward, agreed with the English commander of Stirling Castle, Sir Philip Mowbray, that if no English army had come to rescue him after exactly one year, the castle would be surrendered to the Scots. This was a challenge the new English king, Edward II, could not ignore. He gathered together a large army, numbering an estimated 18,000 cavalry, archers and foot soldiers, and marched north to restore English rule.

      The English army arrived near Berwick-upon-Tweed on 10 June 1314. Edward was an unpopular king, famous for his male favourites, and five of the eight English earls failed to join him. He nevertheless mustered an impressive military force, led by around 2,500 heavily armed and armoured knights, whose giant warhorses, the destriers, acted like tanks on a modern battlefield. Bruce summoned his supporters to the forest of Tor Wood, close by Stirling Castle; they included perhaps 1,000 men from Argyll and the Scottish islands under Angus Óg MacDonald, and a further 6–7,000 foot soldiers. Bruce had only 500 light cavalry under Sir Robert Keith, Marischal of Scotland, and a body of archers. The Scottish army generally avoided pitched battles against a larger enemy, but on this occasion Bruce, warmly supported by his other commanders and his men, decided that a stand had to be made. The battle tactic of the Scots was simple and thoroughly rehearsed. In front of where Bruce expected the battle to take place, the soldiers dug deep pits almost half a metre in diameter, close together and concealed with grass and twigs. Behind the traps, the army relied on the shield ring or ‘schiltron’, 500 men formed in a tight circle, several deep, with long 16-foot (5-metre) iron-tipped spears pointing outwards and upwards to ward off attacking horsemen. These human fortresses were carefully constructed, the outer ring kneeling, the ring behind with spears at chest height, both designed to stop oncoming horses.

      The problem for the Scots was the sheer number of the enemy. On 23 June, one day before Stirling Castle was to be surrendered, Edward moved his vast force north from Falkirk. They arrived at the small river, Bannock Burn, where the Scottish army had been drawn up for battle on New Park, a slope of land beyond the river, which dominated the road to Stirling. The Park had forest behind, through which the Scots could escape, and swampy ground to both the south and east, making a flanking attack by the English difficult. Bruce’s army might nevertheless have succumbed to a frontal assault. Instead the English attacked in the order they arrived, without waiting to assemble a full field of battle. The vanguard under the Earl of Gloucester, seeing what they mistakenly thought was a Scots army withdrawing from an encounter, charged across the pits and swamp. Among those who succeeded in getting across was the young Sir Henry de Bohun. He made straight for Bruce, who was clearly marked out by his golden coronet. Bruce in turn charged on his small grey horse at de Bohun, dodged the lance, and in a deft movement split open de Bohun’s skull with his axe. The vanguard hesitated and withdrew. Another 300 horsemen under Sir Robert Clifford attempted to break through to Stirling Castle, but they were obstructed by a schiltron led by the Earl of Moray. After a vicious engagement, the English again fell back. As dusk fell, Edward ordered his army to set camp.

      There was now a marked contrast between the two forces. Bruce’s single-handed combat had inspired his men, who were now eager for the battle. Edward had misjudged the day and among his commanders there was a despondent expectation that their king lacked the flair or will for the contest. A Scottish knight, fighting with Edward, defected to Bruce that night with news that the English were demoralized by what had happened and the king uncertain of his support. On the morning of 24 June, Edward decided to avoid a fight and to move on to Stirling. The way was blocked by the Scots, who marched in formation down New Park to obstruct the only way through. Edward’s commander, the Earl of Gloucester, again preferred battle and charged at the first schiltron before the army was ready. He was among the first unseated and killed. Edward had to turn his army to face the Scots, and as he did so, the other schiltrons entered the fray. The English archers found it difficult to concentrate their fire, and feared by this time hitting their own knights in the back. Bruce ordered Keith to take his 500 horses and disperse the archers while the English knights were locked in combat. He did so effectively, pursuing them into the marshland. The schiltrons held, partly because the swampy ground hemmed in the English and made it difficult to deploy the foot soldiers behind. Then suddenly, at the height of the battle, Bruce led the islanders of Angus Óg MacDonald in a famous charge down the slope towards the English, screaming and waving their iron axes. Edward fled the field of battle to avoid capture, leaving a leaderless army which, scenting disaster, finally turned and ran, whereupon they were hunted down or drowned in the marshy ground. Bannock Burn was awash with the corpses of horses and men, many of them the noblemen who had rallied to Edward’s cause. Bruce and his commanders survived. No accurate account of the numbers killed on either side can be made.

      The battle proved decisive. Edward returned several times but was unable to overturn the rule of King Robert Bruce, now firmly ensconced as Scotland’s monarch. Edward II was murdered by his opponents in 1327, and the following year Edward III reached agreement with King Robert confirming Scotland’s independence. The Battle of Bannockburn could so nearly have been an English triumph; but Edward II could not inspire or command his army with the same energy, sympathy and tactical imagination displayed by Robert Bruce.

       8. BATTLE OF MOHÁCS

       29 August 1526

      The role of leadership was an important one at the battle on the plain of Mohács that destroyed the Hungarian king and nobility and opened the way to centuries of Ottoman domination of south-central Europe. But it was a role shared by two very different men: the first was the Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman I, scion of the Osmans, later known as the ‘Magnificent’; the second was his grand vizier, Ibrahim Pasha, a young Greek whom Suleiman had met when he was governor of Magnesia. Ibrahim became his close companion and adviser, eating at the sultan’s table, even sharing his tent. The victory over the Hungarians was celebrated as Suleiman’s triumph, but it was sealed by the two men who fought side-by-side that day.

      The conflict between Hungary and the Ottoman Empire went back many years, but by the early sixteenth century, Ottoman encroachment had become more insistent. In 1521, Belgrade fell to the sultan and regular raids were carried out further north towards the Danube. Suleiman’s reputation as a military leader to be reckoned with was secured by the capture of the island of Rhodes in 1522, but he then rested on his laurels. In 1525, the elite janissary guard staged a violent protest against the failure to make war again (for they relied on booty to supplement their meagre pay). Suleiman quelled the rebellion, distributed 200,000 ducats to his troops, and sounded the drum of conquest on 1 December 1525, summoning his people to war. He could have moved east against Persia but decided to return to Hungary; he knew that the kingdom was divided politically and that little help was to be expected from the other Christian monarchies of Europe, occupied with the crisis of the Reformation. He was impelled as Sultan to expand the territory of Islam as a step towards achieving a universal monarchy; for him, expansion against the infidel Christians was a sacred obligation.

      On 23 April 1526, Suleiman and Ibrahim left Constantinople with 100,000 men and 300 guns. It took almost three months before the cavalcade reached Belgrade. Torrential rain had swollen all the rivers, but Ibrahim pushed ahead to make sure they were bridged. Ibrahim was also trusted to sweep aside the few Hungarian troops still found on the road to the Danube. The fortress of Peterwardein was stormed and the garrison of 500 decapitated on Ibrahim’s orders. The Hungarian forces in the path of the Ottoman army, led by Pál Tömöri, the martial Archbishop of Kalosca, retreated back to the Hungarian plain. Here a waterlogged steppe 10 kilometres (6 miles) wide reached south from the small village of Mohács, ending in a line of tree-covered hills. It was there, on the edge of the plain nearest the village, that the Hungarian King Louis and the cream of Hungarian nobility set up their camp. The final number in the Hungarian force is open to conjecture, but is generally thought to be between 25,000 and 30,000, though reinforcements were arriving from Bohemia, Croatia and Transylvania, totalling perhaps 30,000 more.

      As Suleiman’s army drew up among the hills and woods on the far side of the plain of Mohács, the Hungarian nobles pressured the king to fight the battle there and then rather than wait for help. They were confident that the heavy cavalry, armoured man and horse from