The Battle of Agincourt, the day chivalry died. The day the greatest, most heavily armored and armed French knights were defeated by an army they outnumbered vastly, about 7,000 British troops against 15,000-25,000 French forces (again, including their best knights)... by a bunch of peasants carrying longbows, mallets, and wooden stakes.
Not only were the numbers lop-sided, but the British troop "diversity" was not good- about 5/6 of those 7,000ish men were archers, the remainder being dismounted men-at-arms. The French had quite a nice mixture of crossbows, men-at-arms, cavalry- a balanced force. On paper, with just this info, how could the British have possibly stood a chance?
Firstly, they had defender's advantage- so they prepped the battlefield. King Henry ordered all of his longbowmen to each chop down a tree, and fashion it into a stake that's about 5 feet long. The archers would lay these stakes out on the ground in front of them, launch volleys into a charging cavalry/infantry formation, and upon orders they would lift the stakes and pound them into the ground with a mallet. You've just turned your vulnerable line of ranged troops into men covered by an improvised pike wall.
The British were able to taunt the French Knights into making a foolish charge. The taunt? The bowmen would hold up their two bowstring fingers and start shouting, like "I'll kill you noble faggots with my two fingers, come and get it". The French nobility present on the battlefield were incensed at this rabble levy conducting themselves like this. And so they charged. They charged right into the ground that had been rained upon recently, and tilled by the British the day before, leaving it a muddy mess. This is where most of the fighting would occur.
It's pretty horrifying- stories about men drowning in the mud and shit. Witnesses said the British men-at-arms would drag the heavily armored French to the ground, and 3-on-1 they would fucking drown the poor bastard in 2 inches of mud/blood/guts. The longbowmen (positioned in the treeline on high ground on either side of where the men-at-arms were engaging) eventually ran out of arrows... so Henry told them to drop their bows, and charge. The archers grabbed whatever melee weapons they had (lots of axes, maces, but a lot of them ended up using their mallets) and charged into the bloody mess. The French were butchered almost to-a-man.
The historical significance of this battle can't be understated- it actually revolutionized the way military service in Europe took shape. No longer was it levies being called up by their local lord, fighting because if they did not fight, they'd be hanged for treason- now the men would be paid a good wage to go on campaigns! See, these longbowmen at Agincourt were among the first to recieve this kind of treatment from the nobility, and it is theorized that they probably would not have been willing to face such odds without being treated well by young King Henry, and they were being paid- so while they were running around in France, they were happy that their families back home had some measure of security because they were being paid. This led to much higher morale, probably contributed majorly to victory.
Trained longbowmen are not peasants.
Peasantry is a class, part of the caste system of the time. A peasant could be a fantastic warrior, a poet, a wonderful singer- but he's not of noble blood, hence lowborn.
Many years before this battle, the Anglos had recognized the power of the longbow, and the King (idr which) mandated that all males in the lands he ruled spent at least a certain amount of time practicing the longbow every day.
So when King Henry invaded France, he called up his militias- and they were highly specialized ranged fighters. Usually levied troops throughout history weren't subjected to mandatory spear training or whatever, so they tended to not perform as well as the professional soldiers. We can also see this with the Beliaric slingers, from a small island in Greece- there was a tiny tribe that used slings to herd their livestock, so they were extremely proficient at it. Eventually outside forces enlisted them as mercenaries, and these guys were crazy deadly ranged specialists. It's remarkable how similar it was to the situation with English longbowmen, and it makes me wonder if Henry and his court were familiar with such peasant-training practices.
Is this also the story of why the British version of the middle finger is the v?
So crazy that a simple thing like a stake is so effective.
Is this also the story of why the British version of the middle finger is the v?
That's correct, this is where that (possibly real?) gesture comes from.
This is also disputed, but the speech King Henry gave to his longbowmen the day of battle was supposedly pretty moving; remember, his army of 7,000-8,000 men had like 10 nobles among it. So if they were defeated, you know what happens to most non-noble prisoners? Some might be able to be ransomed, but chances are they'd have their throats cut right on the spot of surrender. Because of this, King Henry allegedly told his men that if it came to it, he'd rather die in this battle than be captured and ransomed. That kind of shit will inspire fanatical loyalty from your men- "Our King is willing to die here, with us common folk, a common death! I'll follow him to hell, I will!"
King Henry might also have included a made up threat in this speech- that the French would cut the index and middle finger off of the right hand of any longbowmen who were captured. I would dispute this, because how would Henry know what the French planned to do with prisoners, and also they'd probably just cut their throats or behead them. Regardless, if Henry said this, very clever- just gives the longbowmen even more motivation to hate the already despised French nobility.
On the French nobility.... really, their inaction is what lost them Agincourt. See, Henry's army invaded like 2 years before this, and laid siege to a French town- but it took way too long to capture, and campaign season was ending when the town finally fell. The British army was being devastated by disease, probably dysentery. Fortunately, King Henry was one of the earliest kings to not look at these "surgeon" weirdos as just kooky losers- he had a King's Physician and a team of surgeons traveling with the army, practicing "modern" medicine. They probably kept the campaign alive with their knowledge and expertise. But still, the British numbers were dwindling quickly- they had to get the hell out of France before the French mobilized an army and... y'know, did something.
So Henry's army started marching north towards Calais. By this time, a French army had formed... but the nobility commanding it was hesitant. They shadowed Henry's little army through the French lands, missing dozens of opportunities to attack. But they kept delaying, hoping for more men to join. Eventually the ended up with this overly-swollen French army... but they had chased the British onto the Agincourt battlefield. This field, although we don't know exactly where it is, would be a nightmare for any attacking army.
From the French side, you would see this: a flat, open field, leading to a slope up on either flank into a treeline. The British deployed their men-at-arms in a formation 4-men deep in the center, down on the flat area. Their longbowmen were positioned in the treelines on each flank. The British had a sort of crescent shaped formation, a perfect way to shoot arrows into the sides of the enemy formations from the high ground- and they were so close, some of the eyewitness accounts have the longbowmen's arrows actually piercing through French full-plate. I find this a little hard to believe, but regardless it proved effective in at least distracting/provoking the French.
Finally, the ending of the battle was unprecedented. Up until this battle, the concept of ransoming was almost always observed- even a poor spearman could fetch some ransom, sometimes. So the British defeat the main French assault and take several thousand French prisoners, nobles and commoners among them... but then the British spot more French formations sort of slinking around, eyeing up the British disposition. This got King Henry worried about another attack, so he quickly ordered a mass execution of prisoners. Some British knights initially protested, saying this was dishonorable- King Henry reiterated his order, and added on "Any who disobey will be hanged." So thousands of French prisoners are now being executed in an open field to the shocked horror of the remaining, onlooking French. They would call this "The day that chivalry died".
In reality, it was a totally practical decision. Some historians argue that this was done to shock and terrorize the remaining French forces to discourage a second major attack- I guess that's possible. I'd say it's more likely that there were simply too many prisoners, not enough healthy British troops left to actually look after and keep control over the prisoners, and the British still needed to keep hauling ass to escape France before they were surrounded- a bunch of prisoners would only slow this down. Food was also a major issue already, having to feed prisoners would've been impossible.
Pretty hardcore right? Wish they taught us about this kind of shit in history class instead of making us watch Schindler's List.
With the ground being so muddy it caused the armor that the knights were wearing to act like a kind of suction cup. Imagine trying to walk through a foot of mud and that mud is sucking your legs down every time you try to take another step, slowing them down to the point of exhaustion.
Then the long bowmen could run up in their leather shoes and use a long knife to stab you in the armpit or behind the knee. This theory was explained in a documentary I saw but I forget the name of it. (probably one of those battlefield docos)
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