I was listening to Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast, and at some point in this episode (concerning the armies of the English Civil Wars) he says this:
The pikemen were usually bunched at the center of the battle line and operated much like an old Greek phalanx. They would line up 6 deep carrying 15 to 18 foot pikes and march forward until they hit the line of enemy pikemen.
They were all supposed to be outfitted with a metal breastplate, but they were usually issued only a leathered buff coat, which you would think would make all of this a very messy and very stabby business; but in reality, being run through with a pike was actually a pretty rare thing. The goal was simply to win the contest known as the "push of pike". Which is exactly what it sounds like: you were trying to shove, push and knock off balance the other side until their ranks broke and ran off.
Sometimes, the "push of pike" was a hell of a contest. But often, one side or the other just wasn't that into it, and after a perfunctory showing would break and run. Then there were my favourite times, when neither side was into it, and they would just kind of stand there and wave their pikes around to make it look like they were fighting, occasionally looking over their shoulders and hoping the generals way in the back were buying it.
(at the 03:43 mark, for those who prefer listening to it)
Nothing against Mike, I know he surely took this from a solid source. But he doesn't quantify the events he's talking about, which leaves me highly curious.
So I ask: what is the source for this? If it did happen like he describes, was it a single episode involving a dozen men or a widespread phenomenon throughout the conflict? If so, how did commanders deal with it?
Edit: I should not have referred to the "First English Civil War" in the title, since there is no implication by the podcaster that what I'm asking about happened in a certain phase of the conflict. Take my question as applying to the entirety of the English Civil Wars.
I can find at least one contemporary attestation of this kind of thing happening, from no less authoritative a source than James, Duke of York—the future King James II—writing about the 1642 Battle of Edgehill (one of the first major battles of the First English Civil War). The quote below comes from All the King's Armies: A Military History of the English Civil War 1642-1651, by Stuart Reid; for the account from James, he cites Peter Young's book Edgehill 1642: The Campaign and the Battle.
While it seems to have been by no means uncommon for pikemen to throw down their pikes and fall on with swords, deliberate encounters between two opposing stands of pikemen were generally conducted at 'push of pike'. This was by no means as dangerous as it might first appear, and hostile commentators such as Daniel Lupton claimed that it was virtually impossible for a pikeman to run someone through, even if he was only wearing a buffcoat. The real object of the exercise seems to have been to push the opposition back sufficiently violently to cause them to lose their footing, or better still to break and run. Nevertheless both sides needed to enter into the spirit of the occasion and, if one side was less thanm enthusaistic, the push might only be a token one with the reluctant party throwing down its pikes and giving way almost at once.
If neither side was too keen on the idea they might even be reduced to an ineffective 'foyning' or fencing, standing off at a pike's length and going through the motions of jabbing at each other while they waited for something to turn up. After the initial clash the infantry battle at Edgehill in 1642 seems to have settled down into an affair of this kind:
When the Royalist army was advanced within musket shot of the enemy [wrote the future King James] the foot on both sides began to give fire, the King's coming on and the Rebells continuing only to keep their ground, so that they came so near one another that some of the battalions were at push of pike, particularly the regiment of the Guards ... The foot thus being engaged in such warm and close service, it were reasonable to suppose that one side shuld run and be disordered; but it happened otherwise, for each as if by mutual consent retired some few paces, and then struck down their colours, continuing to fire at each other even until night, a thing so extraordinary as nothing less than so many witnesses as were present could make it credible.
I have not been able to find evidence that this kind of behavior was widespread, however. Whether or not push-of-pike engagements were "by no means as dangerous as it might first appear," they were often real knock-down, drag-out affairs: one excruciating push at the Battle of Torrington in 1646 is reported to have lasted two hours. Different sources claim different things about the typical fatality rates of push-of-pike engagements, but in some cases the pushing would give way to what was called "bad war," when both sides would drop their pikes, draw swords and other close weapons, and engage in fierce, high-casualty hand-to-hand combat. At Edgehill, the foot soldiers on both sides were quite inexperienced (and, at least on the Royalist side, lightly armored), and it's possible that they were skittish about becoming engaged in this more violent and deadly phase of battle.
This was not typical of the English Civil War or 17th century pike combat at all. By this period the "push of pike" was widely characterized as a very rare and very brief occurrence. This was when more than half of the typical infantry battalion would be armed with muskets, and often ended up being much more than that due to a lack of willing, good quality pikemen.
A battalion would be formed with pikemen in the middle and two "wings" of unarmored musketeers on each side. If they came into melee with the enemy, then the shot would either have to fall onto each other, fighting with swords and musket butts, or else step back slightly continue firing volley after volley point blank into the enemy flanks. The devastating effect of firearms at such short ranges meant that soldiers armed only with pikes definitely had an incentive to press into the enemy and decide the issue as quickly as possible or else run away before the shot had time to start reloading their weapons. This combined with the decreasing frequency of armor during the period made a very quick, bloody conclusion to any melees fairly easy to achieve. I wrote a bit more about it in this post as well as this discussion with u/Hergrim.
It was already widely accepted by this time that the vast majority of casualties were now being caused by bullets, and that most infantry engagements were being decided by the amount of damage inflicted by gunfire at a distance, long before either side got close enough to fight hand-to-hand. During the 30 years war, soldiers sometimes even joked that anyone who kills a pikeman has killed an innocent man. Experienced military theorists and generals remained largely unconcerned about this however. As Robert Barret put it, he shot might be the "furie of the field", but the pikes were still "the strength of the battell" and ". . . the one without the other is weakened the better halfe of their strength."
It was often likened to how the ancient Romans and Greeks relied on their heavy infantry to break the enemy, then left the pursuit and execution of fleeing enemies up to their cavalry and lightly armored velites. Musketeers on their own and out in the open were not expected to be able to resist a determined charge by enemy cavalry, pikemen, or even better-motivated musketeers. But as long as their nearby body of pikes remained unbroken, they could always retreat to safety underneath or behind the pikes and then potentially reform. But if the pikemen broke and ran, then any remaining musketeers could be easily driven off the field. Hence ". . . for hee is but a foolish shot, that shooteth at, or among light skirmishers, where he may discharge vpon the body of his enemies battell, which standes thick together, and is a fayre marke to shoot at; for the armed pikes once ouerthrowen, which is the strength of the field, the victorie by all likelyhood is like to ensue."
Even if they never impaled a single man or horse, steadfast pikemen could still be credited with keeping the army in the fight. Especially in larger battles when positioning and maneuvering was most important, pikemen were the key to taking and holding ground. Even when faced by heavy cavalry armed with pistols and carbines, a disciplined charge by pikemen would be almost certain to force the horsemen to retreat and surrender their position.
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