Battle of Agincourt

[Exsubmariner]

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.



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.