Battle of Agincourt

[Exsubmariner]

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.

[redsoxsalty]

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.

[Blarg]

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

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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.

[Cyrus]

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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.

[Phat Mack]

[ 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.

[wheeler]

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?

[lmcjaho]

[ 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?

[/ QUOTE ]

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]

[MrMon]

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.

[Blarg]

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.

[Blarg]

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