Battle of Agincourt
 

Greetings and Salutations fellow Zoners (soon to be named something different, perhaps),
I know I listed a lot of battles I had in my que a couple of days ago. However, in the grand tradition of putting off something in order to write these posts, I am going to put those posts off so I can write this one.

The request for battles about armies who are outnumbered got me thinking about this particular battle. It is a really good case to examine to explain why terrain is so important on a battlefield.

The year is 1415. It's October. Henry V is on campaign in France fighting over land an title. The French and the English are engaged in a century of warfare that has been going on for several generations at this point. It's not about religion or money, it's about power and national pride.

Henry V is newly planted on his throne. He has overcome more than one conspiracy to interfere with his succession. His reasons for invading France are decidedly self interested.

The English have terried at Harfluer in a prolonged siege. The siege has been a disaster. Not only has it allowed the French to mass an army to repulse the English invasion, even though they did not send aid to the besieged port, but it has also allowed hunger and disease to take their toll on Henry's army. Henry has lost nearly half his army.

Here is what Wikipedia says about the battle. The other links I use are all linked to that article.

Below is a map from here, which is a really good description of the action.

http://www.geocities.com/beckster05/...ges/AgMap2.jpg

Henry has chosen this field carefully. He is on top of a small plateau. This will force any attacking force into a bottle neck which should allow for his reduced numbers of men at arms to fend off an attack while his archers, which he has the most of, use their longbows to shower the enemy with arrows. Henry has no heavy horse. His numbers are 900 men at arms and 5000 archers.

It is worth mentioning here that the English longbow is a fantastic weapon for it's day. After Agincourt, the English adopt the longbow as a staple of their forces. The bow has a range anywhere from 250 to 400 yards and sends an arrow aloft with such high velocity that it is capable of piercing plate armor.

The French, on the other hand, have a force of roughly 40,000. There are over 11,000 knights on horse. There are 18,000 heavily armored footsoldiers and nealy 7,000 crossbowmen. The French have a decided numerical advantage.

Another note here concerns the weather. It is cold and wet. It's October. The field at Agincourt is muddy. It's so muddy that the forces are amassed at 7 AM but do not engage until 11 AM.

The mud is of huge importance this day. The reason is the weight of a French fighting man. A heavily armoured Knight in full plate armour, along with weapons, horse, & horse barding weighs in at about 2,000 pounds. A fully armored foot soldier with weapons weighs in at about 400 pounds. A 2,000 pound knight charging at a full gallop putting all of that energy into the swing of a sword or the tip of a lance is deadly. A heavily armored foot soldier swinging a sword at you while your blows bounce off his armor is also deadly. But, putting all that weight into the mud is a disaster waiting to happen.

Mobility on the field is everything. Today, the French don't have any.

In addition, the French don't have any discipline. Seeing that the French are prepared to wait him out, Henry advances to his second position. The French, however, have been lollygagging all morning and have drifted from their initial positions. Their knights have jockeyed themselves up to the front of the ranks, wanting to be the first into the English lines to kill an Englishman, and have undermined the battle plan of their commanders in the process.

Well the French knights see the English advancing across the field and what do they do?

CHARGE!

Only, this is not a charge. It is a gaggle of knights coming across the field at the English on stumbling horses that are tripping in the mud. The English start launching Volleys of 5000 arrows at the French. It is a slaughter. The few French knights who reach the English lines are not enough to break them and are promptly cut down by the English front lines.

Then, the foot soldiers come at the English. They too stumble in the mud and trip over their fallen countrymen. The English continue to shower the advancing french with their longbows. Again the effect is the same. As soon as the English see the second charge is broken, they put down their bows and run into the field to kill the disarrayed French. In many cases, the archers are not armed with anything other than their bows and pick up French weapons and use them against their owners.

Here is a good page describing how the French charges fell apart and the dynamics of crowd disasters that came into play. Here is a good image of how the terrain affected the French advances. (Sorry it came out on the bottom)

In all, more than 5000 French were killed. A good number of French nobles fell. The English lost only between 25 and 250 men, depending on who you read. There were more than 1000 prisoners, although, many more prisoners were killed when the English thought they had been flanked in a counterattack that was really a raid on the baggage train.

The aftermath of Agincourt was that Henry forced the French into a treaty granting him the rights to the lands he sought.

The opening speech of Shakespeare's play Henry V is an apology for not being able to do justice to the Battle of Agincourt on a stage. However, both movies that have been made of the play attempt to portray the battle. The most recent version with Branaugh does a decent job, but they could have done much more with a bigger budget. http://www.crowddynamics.com/Battlef...20Problems.jpg

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

We few, we happy few.

Great bit of trivia: in the movie Dead Again, Kenneth Branagh's character is in prison, and his prison number is 25101415, the date of the Battle of Agincourt.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

[ QUOTE ]
The request for battles about armies who are outnumbered

[/ QUOTE ]

Now that's what I'm talking about. Thanks.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

I trust you are familiar with John Keegan's The Face Of Battle, then.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

[ QUOTE ]
I trust you are familiar with John Keegan's The Face Of Battle, then.

[/ QUOTE ]

if anyone isn't, i'm happy to supply a brief review that i wrote last semester in one of my grad school seminars. longest five sentences you've ever seen outside of
faulkner...

as for agincourt, the only critical element of the battle that you missed was the use of stakes (think braveheart, but much smaller) by the english to protect their archers and channel the french into particular avenues of attack. i think the stakes were even moved at one point in the battle for re-positioning purposes.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

[ QUOTE ]
Greetings and Salutations fellow Zoners (soon to be named something different, perhaps),
I know I listed a lot of battles I had in my que a couple of days ago. However, in the grand tradition of putting off something in order to write these posts, I am going to put those posts off so I can write this one.

The request for battles about armies who are outnumbered got me thinking about this particular battle. It is a really good case to examine to explain why terrain is so important on a battlefield.

The year is 1415. It's October. Henry V is on campaign in France fighting over land an title. The French and the English are engaged in a century of warfare that has been going on for several generations at this point. It's not about religion or money, it's about power and national pride.

Henry V is newly planted on his throne. He has overcome more than one conspiracy to interfere with his succession. His reasons for invading France are decidedly self interested.

The English have terried at Harfluer in a prolonged siege. The siege has been a disaster. Not only has it allowed the French to mass an army to repulse the English invasion, even though they did not send aid to the besieged port, but it has also allowed hunger and disease to take their toll on Henry's army. Henry has lost nearly half his army.

Here is what Wikipedia says about the battle. The other links I use are all linked to that article.

Below is a map from here, which is a really good description of the action.

http://www.geocities.com/beckster05/...ges/AgMap2.jpg

Henry has chosen this field carefully. He is on top of a small plateau. This will force any attacking force into a bottle neck which should allow for his reduced numbers of men at arms to fend off an attack while his archers, which he has the most of, use their longbows to shower the enemy with arrows. Henry has no heavy horse. His numbers are 900 men at arms and 5000 archers.

It is worth mentioning here that the English longbow is a fantastic weapon for it's day. After Agincourt, the English adopt the longbow as a staple of their forces. The bow has a range anywhere from 250 to 400 yards and sends an arrow aloft with such high velocity that it is capable of piercing plate armor.

The French, on the other hand, have a force of roughly 40,000. There are over 11,000 knights on horse. There are 18,000 heavily armored footsoldiers and nealy 7,000 crossbowmen. The French have a decided numerical advantage.

Another note here concerns the weather. It is cold and wet. It's October. The field at Agincourt is muddy. It's so muddy that the forces are amassed at 7 AM but do not engage until 11 AM.

The mud is of huge importance this day. The reason is the weight of a French fighting man. A heavily armoured Knight in full plate armour, along with weapons, horse, & horse barding weighs in at about 2,000 pounds. A fully armored foot soldier with weapons weighs in at about 400 pounds. A 2,000 pound knight charging at a full gallop putting all of that energy into the swing of a sword or the tip of a lance is deadly. A heavily armored foot soldier swinging a sword at you while your blows bounce off his armor is also deadly. But, putting all that weight into the mud is a disaster waiting to happen.

Mobility on the field is everything. Today, the French don't have any.

In addition, the French don't have any discipline. Seeing that the French are prepared to wait him out, Henry advances to his second position. The French, however, have been lollygagging all morning and have drifted from their initial positions. Their knights have jockeyed themselves up to the front of the ranks, wanting to be the first into the English lines to kill an Englishman, and have undermined the battle plan of their commanders in the process.

Well the French knights see the English advancing across the field and what do they do?

CHARGE!

Only, this is not a charge. It is a gaggle of knights coming across the field at the English on stumbling horses that are tripping in the mud. The English start launching Volleys of 5000 arrows at the French. It is a slaughter. The few French knights who reach the English lines are not enough to break them and are promptly cut down by the English front lines.

Then, the foot soldiers come at the English. They too stumble in the mud and trip over their fallen countrymen. The English continue to shower the advancing french with their longbows. Again the effect is the same. As soon as the English see the second charge is broken, they put down their bows and run into the field to kill the disarrayed French. In many cases, the archers are not armed with anything other than their bows and pick up French weapons and use them against their owners.

Here is a good page describing how the French charges fell apart and the dynamics of crowd disasters that came into play. Here is a good image of how the terrain affected the French advances. (Sorry it came out on the bottom)

In all, more than 5000 French were killed. A good number of French nobles fell. The English lost only between 25 and 250 men, depending on who you read. There were more than 1000 prisoners, although, many more prisoners were killed when the English thought they had been flanked in a counterattack that was really a raid on the baggage train.

The aftermath of Agincourt was that Henry forced the French into a treaty granting him the rights to the lands he sought.

The opening speech of Shakespeare's play Henry V is an apology for not being able to do justice to the Battle of Agincourt on a stage. However, both movies that have been made of the play attempt to portray the battle. The most recent version with Branaugh does a decent job, but they could have done much more with a bigger budget. http://www.crowddynamics.com/Battlef...20Problems.jpg

[/ QUOTE ]

I raised the question of the current thinking about Agincourt on the medieval history list where I hang out. Here's a response from one of the resident military historians (he's an expert on tournaments and jousting btw):

I've read and reviewed (forthcoming) the Curry book and the most interesting thing in her very detailed and quite excellent book was her discussion of the psychology of Henry and his killing of the captives. By the standards of warfare between Christians this was pretty extreme. It reminded me of the Turks killing infidels after Nicopolis.

I was very impressed by her mastery of the sources, French and English and her careful reconstruction of diplomacy and politics as well as military affairs.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

It sounds to me that the French charged on a whim without a back-up plan. What is the effective range of a Crossbow? The French should have tried to outflank the English with their superior numbers and Crossbow men while their Knights were stuck in the mud.

Anyway, Joan of Arc got revenge for France later in the century.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

Well, I don't really know the range on a contemporary crossbow in 1415. I do know that they were most effective when employed to defend a fortification. I would guess that they were accurate within 50- 100 yards at best. Another drawback is that they take some doing to reload. I imagine the french had them more of a defensive measure to counter an English attack.

In order to flank, the bowmen would have had to hold their formations down a hill on either side, through forest, and then turn inward and go back up the hill. This was virtually impractical. Harry picked this terrain carefully and I imagine the foremost thought in his mind was controlling the number of men who could attack him at once.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

What is the website?

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

Contrary to popular beleif, I haven't read everything. Although, I am familiar with the concepts he put forward. I think he has set the tone for many of the modern interpretations of history.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

Hey, lay your five long sentences on us, brother zoner. I'd really like to read your review.

Barbican was pretty standard since the Romans to defend a line against horse. You are right, though, I did not mention it.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

less of a review, more of a synopsis of argument. the five sentence synopsis is a nice exercise, but it is hell on one's writing. it's even more difficult when you tackle a larger (size and theme) book, like macmillan's "paris 1919."


In The Face of Battle, John Keegan attempts to provide a glimpse of the common soldier’s experience in combat (and the change in that experience over time) by examining three of England’s most important battles: Agincourt, Waterloo, and the First Battle of the Somme. Keegan begins the book with a methodological critique of existing military history, arguing that traditional scholarship has focused excessively on the elite (“generals and generalship”) and the concept of “decisive” battles, much to the detriment of understanding the motivations and feelings of the regular soldier. It is this need to “catch a glimpse of the face of battle” that prompts Keegan to examine the different types of armed combat in his chosen battles (infantry vs. infantry, cavalry vs. infantry, etc.), the various motivations for men to fight, the attitudes with which men went into battle, and how various tactical decisions affected the experiences of soldiers. Keegan finds some similarities in all three battles, notably, that despite the continued mechanization of warfare, it is still the infantry that play the most critical role, and that “victory” is more or less a moral conflict where the key is getting the infantry to “stand.” Differences, however, abound, particularly with regard to the ever-expanding size of the battlefield, the now longer duration of combat, the increase in specialization among soldiers, and probably most interestingly, the idea that while medieval battles maintained a personal element resulting from close similarities to everyday life, the modern battle is highly impersonal and disconnected from the laws and norms of modern, civil society.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

[ QUOTE ]
I trust you are familiar with John Keegan's The Face Of Battle, then.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was disappointed with parts of Keegan's rendition. What really irked me is his saying that it was probably the lower classes who killed the prisoners, as they were more the dishonorable type to do such a thing. Not surprising, coming from a Brit, really.

Keegan
 

[ QUOTE ]
I am familiar with the concepts [John Keegan] put forward. I think he has set the tone for many of the modern interpretations of history.

[/ QUOTE ]He's teaching at Sandhurst, so a (very) slight pro-British bias is to be expected. That aside, Keegan does not put forward a "thesis", as such, as much as a way of looking at battles not from the standard, bird's eye view, but, rather, in addition to the grand happenings on the map to examine with equal care what's happening on the field, to and by the common soldier. What he wore, his background, his disposition, and everything that a human being was at the time of battle mattered and Keegan examined it from a militarist point of view, that cannot help but become slightly humanistic also.

All his books are to be recommended. Not all of them have penetrating insights but none of them is not interesting. Personal favorites: The Mask Of Command; The Face Of Battle; Sxi Armies At Normandy.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I trust you are familiar with John Keegan's The Face Of Battle, then.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was disappointed with parts of Keegan's rendition. What really irked me is his saying that it was probably the lower classes who killed the prisoners, as they were more the dishonorable type to do such a thing. Not surprising, coming from a Brit, really.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's been many years since I read this, but didn't Keegan say there was, or Henry thought there was, an attack on their baggage train, and that the prisoners were killed to prevent their joining the attackers? I don't remember him making it a class issue per se.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

You'd think that the French might have devised some counter to the longbow by 1415, since English longbowmen had demonstrated its supremacy at Crecy, almost 70 years earlier.

I remember reading somewhere that the French tried to train longbowmen at some point, but without success. Anyone know why? Lack of appropriate wood?

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

[ QUOTE ]
You'd think that the French might have devised some counter to the longbow by 1415, since English longbowmen had demonstrated its supremacy at Crecy, almost 70 years earlier.

I remember reading somewhere that the French tried to train longbowmen at some point, but without success. Anyone know why? Lack of appropriate wood?

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Crossbow = point&shoot - couple of weeks of training and a few bolts wasted for mediocre proficiency = cheap

Longbow = very difficult weapon to use - months of training and lots of arrows for mediocre proficiency = very much not cheap

Cost was a major reason that the French never mastered the use of the Longbow in army quantities.

Besides - it was much more French to surrender to superior forces [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

According to the very good article on the English Longbow in Wiki (here), the long training problem really was the problem. English longbows had a draw of 150-180 lbs, something no modern archer can master today and maintain any degree of accuracy. Plus they could fire them at 12 rounds per minute. The strength required to operate the weapon was so great, skeletons of archers are deformed and can be recognized by their "enlarged left arms, and often bone spurs on left wrists, left shoulders and right fingers".

Besides, the French always had the advantage of population, so they always took the "cannon fodder" approach to warfare. Arm a large population with simple weapons and throw them at the enemy. The English didn't have the luxury of a massive population, and so developed a different tradition.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

Awesome. Don't remember where I read it, maybe Keegan, but I read that the bow was heavily practiced in England by virtually the entire adult male population, and even by kids. It was a national tradition and I think I remember something about it even being compulsory for the male population at large, at some points. Memory is damn vague on it unfortunately. At any rate, it was expected of an Englishman to practice the longbow, or at least one who wasn't upper class, and treated as a national duty. And it did take many years to develop high proficiency in it.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

The lessons the English learned in Wales were later used with deadly effect by Welsh mercenaries on the battlefields of France and Scotland. Their skill was exercised under King Edward I of England (r. 1272-1307), who banned all sports but archery on Sundays to make sure English citizens practised with the longbow. -- wiki

The Smell of Battle
 

[ QUOTE ]
Wikipedia
The English archers were thrown forward in wedge-shaped salients. Many archers were naked below the waist due to the continuing dysentery of the march, and the Englishmen's last meal was four days previous. Once in formation, the archers were not allowed to leave and had to relieve themselves where they stood.

[/ QUOTE ]Where's William Castle when we need him?

[ QUOTE ]
The French always had the advantage of population, so they always took the "cannon fodder" approach to warfare.

[/ QUOTE ] This is surprising to read. In which instances did the French adopt the "canon fodder" approach? The Napoleonic Wars show quite the oposite, in fact. Where did that "always" come from?

If you are referring to the numerical asymmetry between the invading English and the defending French, it is usually the case that the invader is numerically inferior to the invaded population, generally speaking. (The "cannon fodder approach" in World War I was a universal "approach" and not a French specialité.)

Re: The Smell of Battle
 

There was a documentary on UK tv last year that questioned the popular beliefs of the battle. They set up experiments to show that the longbows and arrows in use could not have pierced the armour of the attacking French and that the mud and overcrowding had more of an effect on the battle, allowing the non armoured archers to run out and engage in hand to hand combat which is likely what killed the majority of attackers rather than the arrows.

Not sure if other scholors support this theory or not.

Re: The Smell of Battle
 

Have I unintentionally authored a poo thread? Perhaps I should retitle it as "a famous day without pants." [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

[ QUOTE ]
...with their superior numbers and Crossbow men

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This is purely from memory, but I don't think that the French crossbowmen were capable of any significant action that day. They were soaked from the rain, and their bowstrings were damp, rendering the weapons almost useless. The string for the English longbow, on the other hand, had an easily removable and replaceable bowstring, so they had kept their strings out of the rain.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
...with their superior numbers and Crossbow men

[/ QUOTE ]

This is purely from memory, but I don't think that the French crossbowmen were capable of any significant action that day. They were soaked from the rain, and their bowstrings were damp, rendering the weapons almost useless. The string for the English longbow, on the other hand, had an easily removable and replaceable bowstring, so they had kept their strings out of the rain.

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe that was at Crecy, not Agincourt, but I could well be mistaken.

Ask any real estate agent
 

[ QUOTE ]
There was a documentary on UK tv last year that questioned the popular beliefs of the battle. They set up experiments to show that the longbows and arrows in use could not have pierced the armour of the attacking French and that the mud and overcrowding had more of an effect on the battle, allowing the non armoured archers to run out and engage in hand to hand combat which is likely what killed the majority of attackers rather than the arrows.


[/ QUOTE ]Location, location, location.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

You're right: it was at Crecy. Wikipiedia mentions the weather effects on the crossbow strings at Crecy, and not at Agincourt. It was just my imperfect memory digging out something that sounded familiar, and therefore right.

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

[ QUOTE ]
You're right: it was at Crecy. Wikipiedia mentions the weather effects on the crossbow strings at Crecy, and not at Agincourt. It was just my imperfect memory digging out something that sounded familiar, and therefore right.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am bumping this to pass along a URL which may be of interest to all you military history buffs:
www.deremilitari.org

This gives access to an extensive collection of primary and secondary sources on medieval and early modern warfare. The site contains the writings of the most respected military historians of the period. For example, check the what's new section for comments on Crecy by Kelly DeVries.

(Wikipedia is, of course, not reliable because any fool can write any nonsense and post it, and when someone knowledgeable does write an entry, any fool can come along and change it. At the moment the medieval historians are discussing whether and how to monitor wikipedia, since every time an expert removes some misconception about the Middle Ages, some dunce puts the erroneous material right back in.)

Re: Battle of Agincourt
 

Thanks very much: I love this stuff. The uni that I did my degree at had a phenomenal libary for compilations of these sorts of things. I'd wander through there reading whatever seemed interesting. The uni that I'm doing my postgrad work at has nothing like this, and I greatly miss it. You've made my life that little bit better.