OTTOMAN CORSAIRS IN THE WESTERN ... - Bilkent University

Reconquista would inflict upon them. At this point, the importance of the military
revolution should not be underestimated. Spanish army had already adopted itself to the
needs of a modern warfare since they experienced the use of firearms. At the last years
of Reconquista at a time when the Spanish armies had to face the tough geography of
Granada, they reformed their army and detached it from the border system to a
centralized army. 65 “Reconquista… implied new styles in the armed fight, this scenario
being a real laboratory of experiences for the Christian troops to apply later.” 66 The
introduction of gunpowder and cannon and most importantly improvements in their
utilizations changed the warfare strategies. The cannon technology was gradually
adopted in the fourteenth century; yet it took at least another century to develop it. From
1430 onwards, they were used in the sieges in order to crumble the defences. The
improvements in its design and range made commanders of Europe resort to cannons
more frequently in the sixteenth century. In order to provide an efficient defence against
the destructive effect of the gunpowder, bastion system was introduced in Italy in which
fortifications were not only equipped with its own artillery, but also redesigned. The
depth of the walls was increased while its height decreased and the towers and gateways
were reshaped into bastions. 67 In addition to the changing formations and bastion-based
fortifications, the composition of the armies also changed when infantry replaced
cavalry.
However, new technology created its own problems. Simply, it was too
expensive. It increased the longevity of skirmishes and the number of troops deployed
65 Hess, The Forgotten Frontier, pp. 19-20.
66 Belenguer, El Imperio de Carlos V, p. 137.
67 Geoffrey Parker, “The Gunpowder Revolution: 1300 – 1500”, in The Cambridge Illustrated History of
Warfare: The Triumph of the West, ed. Geoffrey Parker (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 106-117.
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