A gendarme was a heavy cavalryman of noble birth, primarily serving in the French army from the Late Middle Ages to the early modern period. Heirs to the knights of French medieval feudal armies, French gendarmes enjoyed like their forefathers a great reputation and were regarded as the finest European heavy cavalry force[1] until the decline of chivalric ideals largely due to the ever-evolving developments in gunpowder technology. They provided the King of France with a potent regular force of armored lancers which, when properly employed, dominated late medieval and early modern battlefields. Their symbolic demise is generally considered to be the Battle of Pavia, which saw the gendarmes suffer a disastrous defeat and inversely confirmed the rise of the Spanish Tercios as the new dominant military force, leading to the preeminence of the House of Habsburg in 16th century Europe.
Early sixteenth century French gendarmes. Note the very complete plate armour for man and horse, the extremely heavy lance, and the military skirts, called "bases", worn almost universally in the early 16th century.
Etymology
The word gendarme derives originally from the French homme d'armes (man-at-arms), plural of which is gens d'armes. The plural sense was later shortened to gendarmes and a singular made of this, gendarme.
History
Origin
During the 15th century, the King of France was mostly occupied trying to defend the Kingdom from invasions, most notable of which were the English invasions of the Hundred Years' War which devastated medieval France. The king then sought to improve and possess a permanent army, ready at his beck and call. By that period, the old form of feudal levy had long proven inadequate and had been replaced by various ad hoc methods of paying vassal troops serving for money rather than simply out of feudal obligation, a method that was heavily supplemented by hiring large numbers of out-and-out mercenaries. These methods, though improvements on the old annual 40-day service owed by knights (the traditional warrior elites of Medieval Europe), were also subject to strain over long campaigns. During periods of peace they also resulted in social destabilization, as the mercenary companies—referred to in this period as routiers—refused to disband until granted their back-pay (which was invariably hopelessly in arrears), and generally looted and terrorized the areas they occupied.
The French kings sought a solution to these problems by issuing ordinances (ordonnances) which established standing armies by which units were permanently embodied, based, and organized into formations of set size. Men in these units signed a contract which kept them in the service of the unit for periods of one year or longer. The first such French ordinance was issued by King Charles VII at the general parliament of Orléans in 1439, and was meant to raise a body of troops to crush the devastating incursions of the Armagnacs.
French gendarme companies
Eventually more ordinances would set the general guidelines for the organization of companies of gendarmes, the troops in which were accordingly called the gendarmes d'ordonnance. Each of the 15 gendarme companies was to be of 100 lances fournies, each composed of six mounted men—a noble heavy armoured horseman, a more lightly armed fellow combatant (coutillier), a page (a non-combatant) and three mounted archers meant as infantry support. The archers were intended to ride to battle and dismount to shoot with their bows, and did so until late in the fifteenth century, when they took to fighting on horseback as a sort of lighter variety of gendarme, though still called "Archers." These later archers had armour less heavy than the gendarmes, and a light lance, but could deliver a capable charge when necessary.
Armor on Display at the NYC Metropolitan Museum.
This organization was provisional, however, and one of the mounted archers was commonly replaced by another non-combatant, a servant (valet).
In 1434, the pay for the members of the company was set as 120 livres for gendarmes, 60 for coutilliers, 48 for archers, and 36 for the non-combatants.[2]
Gendarme unit organization evolved over time. The retention of the lance as a relevant small unit formation, a relic of medieval times, gradually fell away in the sixteenth century, and, by an edict of 1534, Francis I declared that a company of gendarmes would be made up of 40 gendarme heavy, and sixty archer medium, cavalry (each gendarme having two unarmed attendants, pages and/or valets), thus practically ending the old proportions of troop types based on the number of lances. By the 1550s, advances in firearm technology dictated that a body of 50 light cavalry armed with an arquebus be attached to each gendarme company.[3]
The heavy cavalrymen in these companies were almost invariably men of gentle birth, who would have served as knights in earlier feudal forces. In many ways they still closely resembled knights—wearing a complete suit of plate armour, they fought on horseback, charging with the heavy lance.
A gendarme company was formed by the crown, the king appointing a magnate to raise the company and be its captain, and paying him for its maintenance. In this way, the bonds between the crown and the magnates were maintained, as the king's patronage essentially bought the loyalty of the nobility.[4] Likewise, appointment of individual gentlemen to a gendarme company (a matter of provincial administration) was mostly accomplished by patronage and recommendation, favouring those with the right family connections. Recruits preferred positions in companies stationed in their home province, but did not always obtain them.[5]
The total number of gendarmes in the companies varied over the decades. The high point was roughly 4,000 lances during the latter part of the reign of Louis XI, but the Estates General of 1484 reduced this to 2,200 lances, which number was thereafter, more or less, the peacetime average. This was generally increased by another 1,000 lances in wartime. When conflict ended, the reduction came either in the number of companies, or in the number of lances in the companies (or by a combination of these two methods). Captains dreaded a reduction of their company as a diminution of their prestige and income, and worked hard to prevent this—which companies were reduced usually reflected the influence of the respective captains at court.[6]
The gendarme companies were permanently stationed in towns in the provinces throughout France, subject to be summoned during wartime and concentrated in the Royal armies. Some became closely associated with the towns where they were stationed. If these garrison towns did not have sufficient resources to support the gendarmes present, as was often the case, individuals often found lodging in nearby areas. This lack of lodging could apply even in times of peace, when many of the men retired to their homes instead of remaining in the garrison (particularly in winter), and despite the contemporary system of giving leave, which allowed up to one quarter of the company to be away at any given time. Men who were away for these reasons were to be brought back to the company by the captains when ordered to do so by the provincial governor. Long-term absence was a chronic problem in the companies.[7]
The French ordinances established regular infantry forces as well, but these were substantially less successful.
Burgundian gendarme companies
It was with his increasingly professional army, including its gendarme heavy cavalry, that the French king ultimately defeated the English in the Hundred Years War and then sought to assert his authority over the semi-independent great duchies of France. When the Burgundian dukeCharles the Bold wished to establish an army to stand up to this royal French threat, he emulated the French ordonnance army, raising his own force of gendarmes in ordonnance companies starting informally in 1470, officially establishing these by means of an ordonnance issued in 1471, and refining the companies in further ordonnances issued in 1472, 1473 and 1476. These created twelve ordonnance companies, for a total of 1,200 gendarmes.[8]
Like French companies, the Burgundian gendarmes d'ordonnance companies were also composed of 100 lances, and were similarly raised and garrisoned, but were organized differently, being split into four squadrons (escadres), each of four chambres of six lances each. Each Burgundian lance still contained the six mounted men, but also included three purely infantry soldiers—a crossbowman, a handgunner and a pikeman, who in practice fought in their own formations on the battlefield. There was a twenty-fifth lance in the escadre, that of the squadron commander (chef d'escadre).
The newly established Burgundian Ordonnance companies were almost immediately hurled into the cauldron of the Burgundian Wars, where they suffered appalling casualties in a series of disastrous battles with the Swiss, including the loss of the Duke himself, leaving no male heir. Ultimately, however, elements of his gendarmes d'ordonnance were re-established by Philip the Handsome on a smaller scale, and these companies survived to fight in Habsburg forces into the sixteenth century.[9]
Gendarmes in battle in the early sixteenth century
France entered the sixteenth century with its gendarme companies being the largest and most respected force of heavy cavalry in the world, feared for their powerful armament, reckless courage and esprit de corps.[10] As the fifteenth century waned, so did the tactical practices of the Hundred Years War, and the gendarmes of the sixteenth century returned to fighting exclusively on horseback, generally in a very thin line (en haye), usually two or even just one rank deep, so as to maximize the number of lances being set upon the enemy target at once.
French gendarmes.
As such, the early to mid sixteenth century may appear to modern viewers to be a period of military anachronism—heavily armoured cavalry, appearing to all the world as the knights of old, careened across the battlefield alongside rapidly modernizing heavy artillery and infantry bearing firearms.
However, the gendarme cavalry, when properly employed, could still be a decisive arm, as they could deliver a potent shock attack and remained fairly maneuverable despite the extremely heavy armour they now wore to defend themselves from increasingly powerful firearms. At some battles, such as at Seminara, Fornovo and Ravenna, they clashed with their heavily armoured opposite numbers, and prevailed, dominating the battle. In others, such as at Marignano, they were part of a de factocombined arms team, operating in conjunction with infantry and artillery to achieve battlefield victory against an all-infantry foe. They could also function, by plan or by chance, as a decisive reserve which could enter into a confused battle and crush disordered enemy infantry. The prime example of this would be at Ravenna, where the gendarmes, having just driven the Spanish cavalry off the field, then reversed the results of the infantry clash in which the Spanish had prevailed, riding down the disordered Spanish foot.
Francis I depicted wearing the base at the Battle of Marignano.
However, when unsupported and facing enemy infantry in good order, particularly those in pike and shot formations or in a strong defensive position, they suffered heavy casualties despite their now immensely thick armour. Examples include the Battle of Pavia, when the French cavalry were shot down by Spanish infantry who sought cover in broken terrain, and at Ceresole, when the French gendarmes sacrificed themselves in fruitless charges against the self-supporting Imperial infantry regiments. The pike and shot formation developed by the Spanish was particularly deadly to the gendarmes, who suffered heavy casualties from arquebus and musket fire, but were unable to overrun the vulnerable shooters due to the protection offered by the pikemen of the formation, though successfully delaying them from intervening in the main center engagement. Also proving effective in the same battle routing the pike and shot formations engaged in the center via a charge into the flank by a group of 80 Gendarmes under the command of Boutières.
Evolution into lighter cavalry in the later sixteenth century
Starting in the 1540s another challenge to the gendarmes appeared in the form of the German reiter cavalry armed with wheellock pistols, who offered a cheaper form of heavy cavalry compared to the extremely expensive gendarme. While the effectiveness of these firearms cavalry varied, a number of notable French captains during the French Wars of Religion including Francois de la Noue and Gaspard de Saulx, became heavy critics of the lance and firm advocate of the use of pistols on horseback.
De la Noue in particular wrote in his memoir:
"Whereupon I will say that although the squadrons of the spears [i.e. lances] do give a gallant charge, yet it can work no great effect, for at the outset it killed none, yea it is a miracle if any be slain with the spear. Only it may wound some horse, and as for the shock, it is many times of the small force, where the perfect reiter do never discharge their pistols but in jointing, and striking at hand, they wound, aiming always either at the face or the thigh. The second rank also shoot off so the forefront of the men-or-arms squadron is at the first meeting half overthrown and maimed. Although the first rank may with their spears do some hurt, especially to the horses, yet the other ranks following cannot do so, at leas the second or third, but are driven to cast away their spears and help themselves with their swords. Herein we are to consider two things which experience hath confirmed. The one, that the reiter are never so dangerous as when they be mingled with the enemy, for then be they all fire. The other, the two squadrons meeting, they have scarce discharged the second pistol but either the one or the other turned away. For they contested no longer as the Romans did against other nations, who oftentimes keep the field fighting two hours face to face before either party turned back. By all the afore-said reasons, I am driven to avow that a squadron of pistols, doing their duties, shall break a squadron of spears."[11]
De Saulx noted in his own memoir:
"The large pistols make close action so dangerous that everyone wants to leave, making the fights shorter"[12]
The French, starting with the Huguenot rebels, rapidly replaced the heavy gendarme lance with two pistols, and the armour of the gendarme rapidly lightened to give the horseman more mobility (and to cut the extreme cost of fielding such troops). The tremendous victories won by Henry IV in such battles as Ivry, Arques and Coutras, largely won by his pistolier cavalry against the traditionally-equipped royalist gendarmes, led to the complete conversion of the gendarme into the use of firearms by the end of the 16th century. Such changes were also happening in other Western European nations, with the Dutch under Maurice of Nassau discarding the lance in 1597.
Gendarmes after the sixteenth century
Uniform of a Sous-Brigadier in 1724
Cavalry called gendarmes continued to serve in French armies for centuries to follow, often with prominence (such as in the wars of Louis XIV), but with less distinctive features than during the sixteenth century. The Royal Guard, known as the Maison militaire du roi de France, had two units of gendarmes: the Gendarmes de la garde (Guard Gendarmes), created in 1609 and the Gendarmes de France or Gendarmes d'Ordonnance, units of regular cavalry continuing the traditions of sixteenth-century Gendarmes.
In 1720, the Maréchaussée de France, a police force under the authority of the marshals of France, was put under the administrative authority of the Gendarmerie de France. The Gendarmerie was dissolved in 1788 and the Maréchaussée in 1791, only to be recreated as a new police force of military status, the gendarmerie Nationale, which still exists. This explains the evolution of the meaning of the word gendarme from a noble man-at-arms to a military police officer.
Under Napoleon I, The Gendarmes d'élite de la Garde impériale (English: "élite gendarmes of the Imperial Guard") was a gendarmerie unit formed in 1801 by Napoleon as part of the Consular Guard which became the Imperial Guard in 1804. In time of peace, their role was to protect official residences and palaces and to provide security to important political figures. In time of war, their role was to protect the Imperial headquarters, to escort prisoners and occasionally to enforce the law and limit civil disorder in conquered cities. The unit was renamed Gendarmes des chasses du roi during the First Bourbon Restoration but was disbanded in 1815 during the Second Restoration.
↑ François de la Noue, The Politick and Military Discourses of the Lord de la Noue, translated by Aggas, London 1587, ppg 201-202
↑ Saulx, Jean de, vicomte de Tavannes ([c. 1620]; reprinted 1822). Mémoires de très-noble et très-illustre Gaspard de Saulx, seigneur de Tavannes, mareschal de France, admiral des mers de Levant, gouverneur de Provence, conseiller du roy, et capitaine de cent hommes d'armes, reprinted in Collection complèt̀e des méḿoires relatifs à ̀l'histoire de France, edited by M. Petitot. Paris: Foucault. Vols. 23, 24, & 25. OCLC 39499947, ppg 180.
Sources
Carroll, Stuart. Noble Power During the French Wars of Religion: The Guise Affinity and the Catholic Cause in Normandy, 1998.
Contamine, Phillipe. War in the Middle Ages, 1980 (reprint edition, 1992).
Potter, David. War and Government in the French Provinces, 2002
Further reading
Delbrück, Hans. History of the Art of War, 1920 (reprint edition, 1990), trans. Walter, J. Renfroe.
Volume 3: Medieval Warfare
Volume 4: The Dawn of Modern Warfare.
Elting, John Robert. Swords Around a Throne: Napoleon's Grande Armée, 1997.
Oman, Sir Charles, A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century, 1937.
Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, volume 18 (1939), page 83.
Oman, Sir Charles, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, rev. ed. 1960.
Taylor, Frederick Lewis. The Art of War in Italy, 1494-1529, 1921.
Wood, James B. The King's Army: Warfare, Soldiers and Society during the Wars of Religion in France, 1562-76, 1996.
Related Research Articles
Historically, cavalry are soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Cavalry were the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry in the roles of reconnaissance, screening, and skirmishing in many armies, or as heavy cavalry for decisive shock attacks in other armies. An individual soldier in the cavalry is known by a number of designations depending on era and tactics, such as a cavalryman, horseman, trooper, cataphract, knight, drabant, hussar, uhlan, mamluk, cuirassier, lancer, dragoon, or horse archer. The designation of cavalry was not usually given to any military forces that used other animals for mounts, such as camels or elephants. Infantry who moved on horseback, but dismounted to fight on foot, were known in the early 17th to the early 18th century as dragoons, a class of mounted infantry which in most armies later evolved into standard cavalry while retaining their historic designation.
A lance is a long thrusting spear designed to be used by a mounted warrior or cavalry soldier (lancer). In ancient and medieval warfare, it evolved into the leading weapon in cavalry charges, and was unsuited for throwing or for repeated thrusting, unlike similar weapons of the javelin and pike family typically used by infantry. Lances were often equipped with a vamplate, a small circular plate to prevent the hand sliding up the shaft upon impact, and beginning in the late 14th century, they were used in conjunction with a lance rest attached to the breastplate. Though best known as a military and sporting weapon carried by European knights and men-at-arms, the use of lances was widespread throughout Eastern Asia, the Middle East, and Northern Africa wherever suitable mounts were available. Lancers of the medieval period also carried secondary weapons such as swords, battle axes, war hammers, maces and daggers for use in hand-to-hand combat, since the lance was often a one-use-per-engagement weapon; assuming the lance survived the initial impact without breaking, it was often too long, heavy, and slow to be effective against opponents in a melee.
The Battle of Turnhout, also known as the Battle of Tielenheide, was fought on 24 January 1597 by allied forces of the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of England against those of the Spanish Empire. The battle took place near Turnhout in the Southern Netherlands, and was part of the Eighty Years' War and the concurrent Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604).
The Polish cavalry can trace its origins back to the days of medieval cavalry knights. Poland is mostly a country of flatlands and fields and mounted forces operate well in this environment. The knights and heavy cavalry gradually evolved into many different types of specialised mounted military formations, some of which heavily influenced western warfare and military science. This article details the evolution of Polish cavalry tactics, traditions and arms from the times of mounted knights and heavy winged hussars, through the times of light uhlans to mounted infantry equipped with ranged and mêlée weapons.
Cuirassiers were cavalry equipped with a cuirass, sword, and pistols. Cuirassiers first appeared in mid-to-late 16th century Europe as a result of armoured cavalry, such as men-at-arms and demi-lancers discarding their lances and adopting pistols as their primary weapon. In the later part of the 17th century, the cuirassier lost his limb armour and subsequently wore only the cuirass, and sometimes a helmet. By this time, the sword or sabre had become his primary weapon, with pistols relegated to a secondary function.
A man-at-arms was a soldier of the High Medieval to Renaissance periods who was typically well-versed in the use of arms and served as a fully-armoured heavy cavalryman. A man-at-arms could be a knight, or other nobleman, a member of a knight's or nobleman's retinue, or a mercenary in a company serving under a captain. Such men could serve for pay or through a feudal obligation. The terms knight and man-at-arms are often used interchangeably, but while all knights equipped for war were men-at-arms, not all men-at-arms were knights.
Uhlans were a type of light cavalry, primarily armed with a lance. While first appearing in the cavalry of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Uhlans were quickly adopted by the mounted forces of other countries, including France, Russia, Prussia, Saxony, and Austria-Hungary.
The pike square was a military tactical formation in which 10 rows of men in 10 columns wielded pikes. It was developed by the Swiss Confederacy during the 14th century for use by its infantry.
The lance fournie was a medieval equivalent to the modern army squad that would have accompanied and supported a man-at-arms in battle. These units formed companies under a captain either as mercenary bands or in the retinue of wealthy nobles and royalty. Each lance was supposed to include a mixture of troop types that would have guaranteed a desirable balance between the various components of the company at large; however, it is often difficult to determine the exact composition of the lance in any given company as the available sources are few and often centuries apart.
The Battle of Cerignola was fought on 28 April 1503 between Spanish and French armies outside the town of Cerignola, Apulia, Kingdom of Naples, approximately 80 kilometres (50 mi) west of Bari. The Spanish force under the command of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba comprising 6,300 men, including 2,000 Landsknecht pikemen, 1,000 arquebusiers and 20 cannons, defeated the French force of 9,000 men, mainly gendarme heavy cavalry and Swiss mercenary pikemen, with about 40 cannons, led by Louis d'Armagnac, Duke of Nemours, who was killed during the battle. It was one of the first European battles won by gunpowder weapons, as the attacks by the French cavalry and Swiss pikemen were shattered by the fire of Spanish arquebusiers behind a defensive ditch.
Light cavalry comprised lightly armed and armored cavalry troops mounted on fast horses, as opposed to heavy cavalry, where the mounted riders were heavily armored. The purpose of light cavalry was primarily raiding, reconnaissance, screening, skirmishing, patrolling, and tactical communications. Prior to the 17th century they were usually armed with swords, spears, javelins, or bows, and later on with sabres, pistols, shotguns, or carbines.
The Battle of Ceresole took place on 11 April 1544, during the Italian War of 1542–1546, outside the village of Ceresole d'Alba in the Piedmont region of Italy. A French army, commanded by François de Bourbon, Count of Enghien, defeated the combined forces of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain, commanded by Alfonso d'Avalos d'Aquino, Marquis del Vasto. Despite having inflicted substantial casualties on the Imperial troops, the French subsequently failed to exploit their victory by taking Milan.
The demi-lancer or demilancer was a type of heavy cavalryman in Western Europe during the 16th and early 17th centuries.
The Battle of Dreux was fought on 19 December 1562 between Catholics and Huguenots. The Catholics were led by Anne de Montmorency while Louis I, Prince of Condé, led the Huguenots. Though commanders from both sides were captured, the French Catholics won the battle which would constitute the first major engagement of the French Wars of Religion.
Heavy cavalry was a class of cavalry intended to deliver a battlefield charge and also to act as a tactical reserve; they are also often termed shock cavalry. Although their equipment differed greatly depending on the region and historical period, heavy cavalry were generally mounted on large powerful warhorses, wore body armor, and armed with either lances, swords, maces, flails (disputed), battle axes, or war hammers; their mounts may also have been protected by barding. They were distinct from light cavalry, who were intended for raiding, reconnaissance, screening, skirmishing, patrolling, and tactical communications.
The compagnie d'ordonnance was the first standing army of late medieval and early modern France. The system was the forefather of the modern company. Each compagnie consisted of 100 lances fournies, which was built around a heavily armed and armored gendarme, with assisting pages or squires, archers and men-at-arms, for a total of 600 men. By 1445, France had 15 compagnies, for an army of 9,000 men, of which 6,000 were combatants and 3,000 non-combatants. Over the course of the 15th century, the compagnies d'ordonnance expanded to a peak strength of 58 compagnies of 4,000 lances and 24,000 men in 1483. It was later supplemented by the bandes d'artillerie, the franc-archers militia after 1448 and standing infantry regiments from 1480 onward.
For much of history, humans have used some form of cavalry for war and, as a result, cavalry tactics have evolved over time. Tactically, the main advantages of cavalry over infantry were greater mobility, a larger impact, and a higher riding position.
The Chevau-légers was a generic French name for units of light and medium cavalry.
Pike and shot was a historical infantry tactical formation that first appeared during the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and was used until the development of the bayonet in the late 17th century. This type of formation combined soldiers armed with pikes and soldiers armed with arquebuses and/or muskets. Other weapons such as swords, halberds, and crossbows were also sometimes implemented. The formation was initially developed by the Holy Roman Imperial (Landsknechte) and Spanish (Tercios) infantries, and later by the Dutch and Swedish armies in the 17th century.
The maison militaire du roi de France, in English the military household of the king of France, was the military part of the French royal household or Maison du Roi under the Ancien Régime. The term only appeared in 1671, though such a gathering of units pre-dates this. Like the rest of the royal household, the military household was under the authority of the Secretary of State for the Maison du Roi. Still, it depended on the ordinaire des guerres for its budget. Under Louis XIV, these two officers of state were given joint command of the military household.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
