Battle of Ceresole - Aftermath

Aftermath

The casualties of the battle were unusually high, even by the standards of the time, and are estimated at 28 percent of the total number of troops engaged. The smallest numbers given for the Imperial dead in contemporary accounts are between 5,000 and 6,000, although some French sources give figures as high as 12,000. A large number of officers were killed, particularly among the landsknechts; many of those who survived were taken prisoner, including Ramón de Cardona, Carlo Gonzaga, and Eriprando Madruzzo. The French casualties were smaller, but numbered at least 1,500 to 2,000 killed. These included many of the officers of the Gascon and Gruyères infantry contingents, as well as a large portion of the gendarmerie that had followed Enghien. The only French prisoner of note was Des Thermes, who had been carried along with Sanseverino's retreating Italians.

Despite the collapse of the Imperial army, the battle proved to be of little strategic significance. At the insistence of Francis I, the French army resumed the siege of Carignano, where Colonna held out for several weeks. Soon after the city's surrender, Enghien was forced to send twenty-three companies of Italian and Gascon infantry—and nearly half his heavy cavalry—to Picardy, which had been invaded by Charles V. Left without a real army, Enghien was unable to capture Milan. D'Avalos, meanwhile, routed a fresh force of Italian infantry under Pietro Strozzi and the Count of Pitigliano at the Battle of Serravalle. The end of the war saw a return to the status quo in northern Italy.