The developments in the martial art are always interconnected with the corresponding developments in society and the economy. From the closed, social and economic societies of the Middle Ages, the archetype of the noble, mounted warrior knight could only emerge. However, as society evolved, so did the military perspective by country and era.
The first revolution in martial art took place, without a doubt, in Italy, in the early 16th century and was a product of the Italian Renaissance and clearly had Greek origins. The people of the time were gradually leaving behind the darkness of the Middle Ages and opening their minds to the cries of a new era, but based on the lessons of the past.
And the war tactics of the time were directly related to the ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine ones. Throughout history generals, such as the famous Spanish Gonzalo de Cordoba, they managed the impossible, to crush the famous throughout Europe French heavy cavalry, the aristocratic knights of France and then the hitherto invincible Swiss mercenaries of the French kings.
The formations of Colunella (=phalanx) developed by de Córdoba were miniatures of the army of Alexander the Great. The core of each of them consisted of sarrissophores, drawn up in great depth, who were supported with their fire by arquebusiers, just as the Cretan archers and the Agrian spearmen supported Alexander's phalangites.
A number also of men of each Colonella were trained to fight like the Roman legionnaires, that is, to fight from the cluster, equipped with sword and shield. The Colunellas gave a serious tactical advantage to the Spanish infantry, which advantage was further maximized by the discovery of Terthio formations in the mid-16th century.
The Terthios were compact infantry formations, consisting of sarrissobers and arquebusiers (later musketeers), in a ratio of 1 to 1 initially and 1 to 2 later. The phalanx of the Sarrisophores was drawn up in a very deep formation – 50 fathoms deep – with a front of 30 men. In the four "corners" of the phalanx, divisions of arquebusiers - musketeers were positioned at a depth of 10 scales with a front of 37 men.
The total strength of a Terthio reached 3,000 men. It is easy to see that such a formation was extremely compact and powerful, but also extremely slow moving. Thus until the beginning of the 17th century the strength of each Tersio was limited to 1,500 men. This was the force of the Imperial Tersio defeated by the Swedes in the Thirty Years' War.
However, the biggest development came from the Netherlands. The Netherlands, the Netherlands at that time, which included Belgium, belonged to Spain. The Dutch, however, were not willing to tolerate Spanish rule. They rebelled against them and finally won their independence after 80 years of war. In order to win, the Dutch had to defeat the previously undefeated Spanish Tertio.
Their leader, Mauritius, Prince of Nassau , sought the solution in Byzantine standards. He created small flexible units, the battalions, each of which had a strength of about 520 men. Of these, 3/5 carried muskets and 2/5 saris. These battalions were lined up only 10 fathoms deep.
It is worth noting that the Byzantines were pioneers in the creation of small flexible and easily managed units, of mixed composition, where the central phalanx of hoplites was supported by archers. The great advantage of the Dutch battalions was that they could with a smaller number of men cover a larger front than the Spanish covered with their bulky Terthios.
In other words, they once again put into practice the principle of economy of forces. The Dutch with their new, "Byzantine" tactic, achieved great victories against the Spanish and won their freedom. Also an important step was the re-introduction of the tactic of parallel battle lines – also a Greek tactic – into the battle formation of his army.
The infantry battalions were drawn up in the center of the formation, in at least two lines of battle, one behind the other, leaving between them empty spaces equal to the length of the front of a battalion. The battalions of the second line were positioned behind the gaps in the first line.
In this way if the first line of infantry were defeated they could safely retreat through the gaps without confusing the second line. Also if the first line had to be reinforced, the battalions of the second could, through the gaps, pass without causing disorder and strengthen the fight of the first line. This formation was called cruciform or checkerboard formation.
However, the new tactics reintroduced by Maurice of Nassau also found imitators in the far North. There, in the small kingdom of Sweden, the chosen Lion of the North, King Gustavus Adolphus, he carefully studied the lessons of the Dutch war and applied them to his army.
But Gustavos went one step further. He organized his battalions into brigades – 3 battalions per brigade. Each triad brigade was usually deployed in a triangle formation, with 1 battalion at the top and two at the base. Depending on the tactical situation, however, this could be reversed. Gustavus also dealt with cavalry and artillery.
The cavalry of the time consisted exclusively of pistol-carrying horsemen who fought with the Caracol tactics. Horsemen lined up 6-10 fathoms deep. They would close in on the opponents and shoot at him with their pistols and carbines. Each yoke of men he placed moved back, reloading their weapons.
The next pair would repeat the same process over and over again until the opponent showed signs of bending. Only then did the cavalry rush against him with the sword, but with little speed, so as not to disturb the cohesion of the formation. The cavalry of all the European armies of the time fought in this exact way, which had proved particularly effective against the Ottomans.
Gustavus trained the cavalry to act as a shock weapon, to charge at speed, sword in hand, against opponents in a wedge formation – like Alexander's Companions. In this way his cavalry achieved monumental victories by crushing the more heavily armed and armored Imperial cavalry at Bridenfeld in 1631 and at Lytchen in 1632.
As far as the artillery is concerned, Gustavus re-introduced the light guns into his arsenal, which he organically made available to his infantry brigades, for their immediate support.