The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic — Volume 2

by William Hickling Prescott

At length Montpensier, finding no prospect of relief from home, and straitened by the want of provisions, determined to draw off from the neighborhood of Benevento, where the two armies lay encamped, and retreat to the fruitful province of Apulia, whose principal places were still garrisoned by the French. He broke up his camp secretly at dead of night, and gained a day's march on his enemy, before the latter began his pursuit. This Ferdinand pushed with such vigor, however, that he overtook the retreating army at the town of Atella, and completely intercepted its further progress. This town, which, as already noticed, is situated on, the western skirts of the Basilicate, lies in a broad valley encompassed by a lofty amphitheatre of hills, through which flows a little river, tributary to the Ofanto, watering the town, and turning several mills which supplied it with flour. At a few miles' distance was the strong place of Ripa Candida, garrisoned by the French, through which Montpensier hoped to maintain his communications with the fertile regions of the interior.

Ferdinand, desirous if possible to bring the war to a close, by the capture of the whole French army, prepared for a vigorous blockade. He disposed his forces so as to intercept supplies by commanding the avenues to the town in every direction. He soon found, however, that his army, though considerably stronger than his rival's, was incompetent to this without further aid. He accordingly resolved to summon to his support Gonsalvo de Cordova, the fame of whose exploits now resounded through every part of the kingdom. [25]

The Spanish general received Ferdinand's summons while encamped with his army at Castrovillari, in the north of Upper Calabria. If he complied with it, he saw himself in danger of losing all the fruits of his long campaign of victories; for his active enemy would not fail to profit by his absence to repair his losses. If he refused obedience, however, it might defeat the most favorable opportunity which had yet presented itself for bringing the war to a close. He resolved, therefore, at once to quit the field of his triumphs, and march to King Ferdinand's relief. But, before his departure, he prepared to strike such a blow as should, if possible, incapacitate his enemy for any effectual movement during his absence.

He received intelligence that a considerable number of Angevin lords, mostly of the powerful house of San Severino, with their vassals and a reinforcement of French troops, were assembled at the little town of Laino, on the northwestern borders of Upper Calabria; where they lay awaiting a junction with D'Aubigny. Gonsalvo determined to surprise this place, and capture the rich spoils which it contained, before his departure. His road lay through a wild and mountainous country. The passes were occupied by the Calabrian peasantry in the interest of the Angevin party. The Spanish general, however, found no difficulty in forcing a way through this undisciplined rabble, a large body of whom he surrounded and cut to pieces, as they lay in ambush for him in the valley of Murano. Laino, whose base is washed by the waters of the Lao, was defended by a strong castle built on the opposite side of the river, and connected by a bridge with the town. All approach to the place by the high road was commanded by this fortress. Gonsalvo obviated this difficulty, however, by a circuitous route across the mountains. He marched all night, and, fording the waters of the Lao about two miles above the town, entered it with his little army before break of day, having previously detached a small corps to take possession of the bridge. The inhabitants, startled from their slumbers by the unexpected appearance of the enemy in their streets, hastily seized their arms and made for the castle on the other side of the river. The pass, however, was occupied by the Spaniards; and the Neapolitans and French, hemmed in on every side, began a desperate resistance, which terminated with the death of their chief, Americo San Severino, and the capture of such of his followers as did not fall in the mêlée. A rich booty fell into the hands of the victors. The most glorious prize, however, was the Angevin barons, twenty in number, whom Gonsalvo, after the action, sent prisoners to Naples. This decisive blow, whose tidings spread like wildfire throughout the country, settled the fate of Calabria. It struck terror into the hearts of the French, and crippled them so far as to leave Gonsalvo little cause for anxiety during his proposed absence. [26]

The Spanish general lost no time in pressing forward on his march towards Atella. Before quitting Calabria he had received a reinforcement of five hundred soldiers from Spain, and his whole Spanish forces, according to Giovio, amounted to one hundred men-at-arms, five hundred light cavalry, and two thousand foot, picked men, and well schooled in the hardy service of the late campaign. [27] Although a great part of his march lay through a hostile country, he encountered little opposition; for the terror of his name, says the writer last quoted, had everywhere gone before him. He arrived before Atella at the beginning of July. The king of Naples was no sooner advised of his approach, than he marched out of camp, attended by the Venetian general, the marquis of Mantua, and the papal legate, Caesar Borgia, to receive him. All were eager to do honor to the man who had achieved such brilliant exploits; who, in less than a year, had made himself master of the larger part of the kingdom of Naples, and that, with the most limited resources, in defiance of the bravest and best disciplined soldiery in Europe. It was then, according to the Spanish writers, that he was by general consent greeted with the title of the Great Captain; by which he is much more familiarly known in Spanish, and, it may be added, in most histories of the period, than by his own name. [28]

Gonsalvo found the French sorely distressed by the blockade, which was so strictly maintained as to allow few supplies from abroad to pass into the town. His quick eye discovered at once, however, that in order to render it perfectly effectual, it would be necessary to destroy the mills in the vicinity, which supplied Atella with flour. He undertook this, on the day of his arrival, at the head of his own corps. Montpensier, aware of the importance of these mills, had stationed a strong guard for their defence, consisting of a body of Gascon archers, and the Swiss pikemen. Although the Spaniards had never been brought into direct collision with any large masses of this formidable infantry, yet occasional rencontres with small detachments, and increased familiarity with its tactics, had stripped it of much of its terrors. Gonsalvo had even so far profited by the example of the Swiss, as to strengthen his infantry by mingling the long pikes, with the short swords and bucklers of the Spaniards. [29]

He made two divisions of his cavalry, posting his handful of heavy-armed, with some of the light horse, so as to check any sally from the town, while he destined the remainder to support the infantry in the attack upon the enemy. Having made these arrangements, the Spanish chieftain led on his men confidently to the charge. The Gascon archery, however, seized with a panic, scarcely awaited his approach, but fled shamefully, before they had time to discharge a second volley of arrows, leaving the battle to the Swiss. These latter, exhausted by the sufferings of the siege, and dispirited by long reverses, and by the presence of a new and victorious foe, did not behave with their wonted intrepidity, but, after a feeble resistance, abandoned their position, and retreated towards the city. Gonsalvo, having gained his object, did not care to pursue the fugitives, but instantly set about demolishing the mills, every vestige of which, in a few hours, was swept from the ground. Three days after, he supported the Neapolitan troops in an assault on Ripa Candida, and carried that important post, by means of which Atella maintained a communication with the interior. [30]

Thus cut off from all their resources, and no longer cheered by hopes of succor from their own country, the French, after suffering the severest privations, and being reduced to the most loathsome aliment for subsistence, made overtures for a capitulation. The terms were soon arranged with the king of Naples, who had no desire but to rid his country of the invaders. It was agreed, that, if the French commander did not receive assistance in thirty days, he should evacuate Atella, and cause every place holding under him in the kingdom of Naples, with all its artillery, to be surrendered to King Ferdinand; and that, on these conditions, his soldiers should be furnished with vessels to transport them back to France; that the foreign mercenaries should be permitted to return to their own homes; and that a general amnesty should be extended to such Neapolitans as returned to their allegiance in fifteen days. [31]

Such were the articles of capitulation, signed on the 21st of July, 1496, which Comines, who received the tidings at the court of France, does not hesitate to denounce as "a most disgraceful treaty, without parallel, save in that made by the Roman consuls at the Caudine Forks, which was too dishonorable to be sanctioned by their countrymen." The reproach is certainly unmerited; and comes with ill grace from a court, which was wasting in riotous indulgence the very resources indispensable to the brave and loyal subjects, who were endeavoring to maintain its honor in a foreign land. [32]

Unfortunately, Montpensier was unable to enforce the full performance of his own treaty; as many of the French refused to deliver up the places intrusted to them, under the pretence that their authority was derived, not from the viceroy, but from the king himself. During the discussion of this point, the French troops were removed to Baia and Pozzuolo, and the adjacent places on the coast. The unhealthiness of the situation, together with that of the autumnal season, and an intemperate indulgence in fruits and wine, soon brought on an epidemic among the soldiers, which swept them off in great numbers. The gallant Montpensier was one of the first victims. He refused the earnest solicitations of his brother-in-law, the marquis of Mantua, to quit his unfortunate companions, and retire to a place of safety in the interior. The shore was literally strewed with the bodies of the dying and the dead. Of the whole number of Frenchmen, amounting to not less than five thousand, who marched out of Atella, not more than five hundred ever reached their native country. The Swiss and other mercenaries were scarcely more fortunate. "They made their way back as they could through Italy," says a writer of the period, "in the most deplorable state of destitution and suffering, the gaze of all, and a sad example of the caprice of fortune." [33] Such was the miserable fate of that brilliant and formidable array, which scarcely two years before had poured down on the fair fields of Italy in all the insolence of expected conquest. Well would it be, if the name of every conqueror, whose successes, though built on human misery, are so dazzling to the imagination, could be made to point a moral for the instruction of his species, as effectually as that of Charles the Eighth.