FICTIONAL INTERVIEW TO A PIKEMAN FROM THE "TERCIOS OF FLANDES"

Today, we are interviewing Juan Carlos del Valle del Ágape, a pikeman from the Tercios of Flanders, an army created by Charles V to battle in Flanders, and that proved to be one of the best military units of the 16th and 17th centuries. Good morning.

Good morning

1. What are the Tercios?

The tercios a combination of different military units in Spain. The soldiers are honor men loyal to the King that want to fight for the Catholicism in Flanders, and most of them are professional volunteers.

We have a both close range and fire weapons prepared for the fighting, as a consequence of the combination of the military units. These weapons are basically pikes and carabiners, and this combination makes a really good job on the battlefield.

2. How were the Tercios of Flanders born?

When our king Charles V governed, he found problems in maintaining the territories of Milan, Napoli and Sicily. For defending and keeping them, the king had to reorganise his armies. As a consequence, the first three Tercios were founded: the Napoli, Sicily and Lombardy ones. Later on, new Tercios were created due to the huge success this military units had.

3. What are your strategies?

As I mentioned in the first question, the combination of knives and guns proved to be very effective. We first open up the battle with the muskets at quite a big range. After approaching half the distance, it was the arquebuses turn, and finally, the pikes. The pikes easily smash the enemy’s infantry, and are a defense against horses. If the horse riders tries to assault us, he will find a lot of spikes that will knock his horse.

4. What would you say the most important weapon of the Tercios is?

Undoubtedly, the pike, because of its huge effectiveness against the horses. Me and all the pikemen line up in two different groups, the “armadas”, which consists on pikeman with armor; and the “secas”, which pikemen have almost no gear. With this two lines of pikes from four to six meters long, the horsemen have no chance against this incredible weapon.

5. How is the life of a pikeman?

It is worse, compared to the other soldiers of the Tercios. When you are a “soldado biñoso”, that is to say, when you first enter the Tercio, unless you have experience with fire weapons, you are given just enough money to buy yourself a pike. Moreover, if you have no money to buy some armor or extra equipment, you are named “pica seca”, which as I mentioned before, this pikemen lack from gear.

However, regardless of the role or equipment we have, we all seem to be proud of fighting for the Spanish crown and to be part of such unrivaled teams the Tercios are.

6. What white weapons do you use in the Tercios?

Mainly daggers and swords. They are used for our defense, and the dagger seems to be really useful in this task. It gives us an advantage on the battlefield, because this little knife, combined with the sword, are used mainly to stop enemy’s melee assaults and attack them by surprise on the back when the opportunity presents.

7. What guns do you use in the Tercios?

They are divided into muskets and arquebusiers. The gunmen stay at distance to attack the enemy at range and protect the pikemen. They use a total of twelve loads of gunpowder in tubes of wood that they call “the twelve apostles”.

At first, there was a quite big difference between the muskets and the arquebusiers in terms of usage on the battlefield: the muskets were only fired from the walls as a defensive, sniping weapon. However, this changed. Nowadays, the arquebusiers, which used to fight on foot, now are on horse; and the soldiers with the muskets are struggling on foot.

8. What uniform do you wear?

We don’t wear any, we just wear what we could afford, and only can decorate or improve our clothing after payday or looting a city. The only clothe we have in common is a red sash in our arms, and also in our pikes.

In addition, the pikemen don’t use a dress coat, while the soldiers with the muskets wear a small variety of hats and helmets.

9. Have you discard any weapon?

Actually some of them. At first, there were what we called “rodeleros”, a unit armed with a tipped sword and a small, metal shield. They were also protected by an armor that only covered the upper part of the body. Although they were very good in melee, the time ended up removing this military unit, as we sometimes have to reorganise the Tercios.

We have also discarded the crossbow, which were also used in the first years of the Tercios, but it was proved that replacing them by fire guns was a more intelligent idea.

10. What kind of missions do you do?

The most common missions are exploration, ambushing and catching the enemy off-guard. These three missions are important for knowing the opponent and fainting it when we surprise them with sudden, unpredictable attacks.

One strategy we have related to this operations is the “encamisada”, which were some men that, with only a knife and a shirt, introduce in the enemy’s territory at nighttime to make some damage. This strategy is very effective and most of the times the “encamisados” came back to our base untouched and successful.

http://www.abc.es/historia-militar/20130727/abci-tercios-espanoles-europa-201307261535.html