How Greatswords Beat Pikes in Battle - Or Did They?

Part 1 (Yes, Giant Swords Existed, BUT...)

The Landsknecht ("servant of the country", a German mercenary) is mostly known for his flamboyant outfits and the iconic Zweihander, AKA greatsword, a large two-handed sword. On the battlefield they supposedly used those to chop pikes and break up enemy formations. The evidence we have for this is surprisingly limited though.

So let's take a closer look at some historical depictions and written reports from the 16th and 17th centuries. I also added some personal speculation and an improvised demonstration for visual reference. Take it with a grain of salt, as I'm not an expert on military tactics of the time. I did as much research as time permitted, (which is linked below) but there may be things I've missed.

More thoughts on cutting polearms

The foam greatsword I used as a prop is the Doppelsoldner by Calimacil

*** Time Stamps ***

00:00 - 01:02 Introduction
01:02 - 01:48 The Pike Square
01:48 - 02:38 What is a pike?
02:38 - 03:55 "Academic" fencing masters & skill vs. battlefield chaos
03:55 - 04:41 Spadone vs. polearms
04:41 - 08:10 Evidence for chopping pikes with greatswords
08:10 - 09:36 Shock troops, discipline, unit cohesion
09:36 - 10:17 More realistic movie battle: Alatriste (2006)
10:17 - 11:42 Pike squares: Not homogenous! - Mixed weapons
11:42 - 13:02 How pikemen might keep themselves safe
13:02 - 19:30 Practical demonstration (sword charge / binding pikes / cutting in confined space)
19:30 - 21:21 Conclusion / outro

*** Sources / Links ***

The article on The Spadone Project

Landsknecht: The ‘Garishly’ Effective Footsoldier Of 16th Century
Pikes: A Versatile and Deadly Weapon

Alatriste: Battle of Rocroi

HEMA group doing 20 vs 20 pikemen fight

High res picture of "Bad War" by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543)

*** Music ***

Outro:
"Highland Storm" by The Slanted Room Records
Used with artist's permission

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[clara_corvus]

0:56 In case anyone's interested, the writing on the blade translates to "gambled away all my money".

[flipierfatalbina]

What seems extremely fascinating is thinking about those greatswords defending against other great swords in opposing formations trying doing the same thing as them. Imagining a fight between two amid the “forest of pikes.” That must have been so terrifying.

[lkotof]

The idea of having your buddy next you create an opening for you to enter I think has a lot of merit. Lindybeige made a similar point in one of his older videos. It makes me think of how in chess the pawns can't capture what is directly in front of them, but can capture what is off to the side of the square in front of them, and how they are used primarily as back-up for more powerful units and for controlling important squares like the center of the board, rather than for main attacks.

[neogen]

Interestingly, the man that mastered 2-sword fighting(and even slew a nue according to legend), Miyamoto Musashi, also wrote a book on tactics in which he seems to acknowledge that the longer reach weapons such as polearms are far more effective on the battlefield than the sword, the weapon he was famous for mastering.

[SandRhomanHistory]

yeeesss please! more on this!

edit: doppelsöldner = doppel (double) + söldner (mercenary, but „sold“ is the money you get; so it‘s more like doubly paid mercenary)

the forlon hope was often made up of criminals and later replaced by arquebusiers.

you might wanna look into „rodoleros“ as well. soldiers with sword and shield who were said to haven been used during the italian wars to break up enemy pike formations.

[camronchlarson]

"Don't google average pike length, the results are.. fishy" 😂 this is why I keep coming back. You're the best man

Edit: Holy crap this blew up! Glad everyone agrees Skall is the best ☺️

[mnk]

Wasn't the catch of the swiss Gewalthaufen (heap of force) that those mad lads actually charged with their pike square, essentially ramming the enemy pike square with their own at speed?
Also given how most sources are in german, french or italian the breaking/cutting of pikes with the greatsword could be a proverbial "breaking" of the enemy formation and the "cutting" down of the soldiers. I would argue the greatsword is used to bind with as many pikes as possible (here might the flamed blades come in handy) and use it as a lever to open a gap for your comrades to deal with the next row of pikes or directly charge the opposing pikemen. The mythical swiss hero Winklried is famous for basically grabbing as many pikes as he can (and getting stabbed) to open a gap which might point to the general, less suicidal, idea.

[kishin]

About the Forlorn Hope:
To my knowledge they were partially made up of Doppelsöldner but most men were convicts awaiting the death penalty in the hope of gaining their freedom by surviving a battle. They generally didn't survive

[tol]

Pike formations sound actually terrifying as hell. I really wish we could travel back in time and talk to someone who has been in such units, or to witness these battles ourselves. These men had to have wills of steel.

[degiguess]

I heard once that when Landsknechts were attacking pikes with zweihanders what they did was each swordsman attacked the pike/pikes that were threatening the guy to their left. That way each swordsman is still protected by the guy to their right while having the advantage of essentially being able to attack the pikes from the side which made them much easier to bind.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Mildly unrelated to the topic of the video, but I've just realized something. Since the main killing blow of a pike is a thrust of some variety, the big poofy sleeves and pants of the landsknechts may serve to exaggerate the size of their limbs, encouraging thrusts to the fabric instead of the limb (in addition to being flamboyant as fuck). I dunno, just a thought.

[gabrielblacklock]

I love how nuanced this analysis is! It's not the lazy "swords are just always worse than pikes on a battlefield" answer that other youtubers give, nor does it propagate some fanciful notion that swords are superior or always beat pikes. Instead, it actually looks at history and tries to make sense of it.

[seanpoore]

For someone who isn't an expert on battlefield tactics, this is one of the more sensible breakdowns of 2handed swords and their use in pike warfare, also pike warfare in general
Also as to halfswording with great swords, there's a written passage that Matt Easton once brought up that states that if you're fighting multiple opponents with a montante/spadone you use it like a sword, and if you're fighting a single opponent you can use it like a spear. So there's at least a hint in there

[Funzelwicht]

Great video as always!

I am German, "Schlachtschwert" refers to "Schlacht" which definitely means battle, although it has the same word stem as "schlachten" (to slaughter, to butcher, what a butcher does with pigs) and "Schlachthaus" or "Schlachthof" (slaughterhouse, with "-haus" = house, "-hof" = court). You have to just love this constructive language, right? ;)

[caocao]

This is great. A lot of Chinese Pike/Spear formations often involved mixed unit tactics (for example, the Ming Dynasty's Qi Jiguang's Mandarin Duck Squad), rather than being exclusively pike/spears. So it always confused me when European polearm formations were generally portrayed as uniform, which feels very impractical. Thank you for this demonstration and explanation!

PS- Would love to see your analysis of the Mandarin Duck Squad!

[MikeOxlong]

Hey, just wanted to comment one thing i saw: in the Museum in the castle of Coburg, Germany i found a Gun-spear. It is labeled gun-lance, but it looks more like a spear (also germans often use lance/spear for the same thing). It is one of the most fantasy-like weapons i ever saw.
Thats all folks, just wanted to share this neat little discovery

[phillipmargrave]

The best way to defeat pike formations is with artillery. Or lightsabers.
Edit: I forgot about Balefire

[itsdimitri]

I would argue that "cutting pikes" in historical sources propably doesnt mean to cut the actual pikes, but rather to "cut through" the pike formation, as in that greatswords were quite effective at breaking them up.
A similar case of the exact usage/meaning of words changing with time and context exists with korean turtleships, which are in some sources described as being "covered with iron", leading alot of people today to believe that these ships had iron armor when in reality it propably just meant that their decks were covered with iron spikes to make boarding them more difficult.

[TheDeinonychus]

Honestly it just makes sense you'd have mixed weapons in a unit like this, unless you're using a pike unit for a specific role, such as countering flanking cavalry. The drawback to the pike (and other large polearms) is that it's difficult to counter an opponent who gets past the striking end of your weapon, especially when you're packed into a tight formation where you don't really have the room to pull your weapon back far enough to make use of it effectively. In these cases, having an inner rank of swordsmen or even soldiers armed with shorter polearms like halberds that can counter an enemy push or even make their own push on the enemy once the front ranks create an opening in the enemy pikes is very effective. Not to mention, if you're in a rank of pikemen, and suddenly one of your opponents gets up close and starts shanking your allies, you're going to be more likely to break ranks and try to save your own skin rather than holding the formation. I would not be surprised if the real purpose of pikemen in a formation like this, aside from warding off cavalry, was to create an opening in the enemy formation so swordsmen could rush in and basically eat the enemy formation from the inside out, and once the ranks started to break down, the pikemen would pick off any that turned to flee or turned to engage the swordsmen.

[michaeldecuffa]

The most realistic fight and battle scenes was alatriste with pikes