How did the English win at Agincourt ?

[Thearos]

Reading J. Barker, Agincourt. The actual battle, I can see how the French plan went horribly wrong, and the various moving parts in the army didn't come to play. The charge that was meant to sweep the archers off the field (as later, at Patay) was mistimed and too small, and never returned to the field.

The main effort is a huge block of French men-at-arms on foot, marching up to the thin English line, under a rain of arrows, taking their losses and closing in with the English men at arms (also on foot)-- and driving it back 6 (or 12) feet. The English line does not give, so the French and English men at arms fight it out. The English archers join the fray with mauls etc. Barker says this lasts for 3 hours. By the end, the French have been routed, captured, killed in heaps and heaps. All this on foot.

How does the English army, heavily outnumbered, manage to kill so many of its opponents, if the French are simply feeding in, constantly, fresh men at arms from the rear ranks into the killing zone ? Should the English losses, in ones and twos, not have started to tell ? Did the English archers, lightly armed, wading into the fray against heavily armoured men-at-arms, make such a difference ?

Was the French assault wave perhaps a lot smaller than sometimes claimed ?

[John H]

I’m avoiding work so I’ll give you a few thoughts. Here’s the wiki, which I like for the quick summery of the fights. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt

Read through the terrain section, the French had to cross a muddy field that was freshly plowed, meaning they were working pretty hard to reach the battle line. The English also had funneled the field properly so they only had to fight on one side and the French could only bring a portion of their strength to the fight at any given time. The effect is a lot closer to a concert where everyone is rushing the stage. The front rows end up being crushed by the back rows. Because the English don’t give way (more than a few feet) the constant compacting of the French line doesn’t help the French. Also the dead or wounded aren’t leaving the field, they are still their being trampled and creating an obstacle for the French to get by, you can’t just feed fresh troops into an area, it fills up and can not take any more.

Even though the arrows were not killing the men at arms and mostly not making it through the armor, there is a damage aspect to the armor that needs to be considered. If you take two hundred arrows to your armor it has done some damage even if it didn’t make it through. The French are arriving at the battle line winded, annoyed and with armor that is not in optimum condition while the English men at arms have been sitting back having tea.

I’m sure you have heard about the Spartans holding a mountain pass while massively outnumbered. This is doable because you create a battle line where you only have to fight a small portion of the enemy at once. This is similar to what Henry was able to do at Agincourt. It was not that the French was smaller than discussed, but more that they were not all able to fight at the same time. There was basically a line waiting to fight after the front guy is killed or surrenders then the next guy gets to fight.

[bigdummy]

When an armies morale collapses, and panic and exhaustion combine, it is not at all unusual for massive and unequal slaughters to ensue. Armies which lacked structure or strong leadership, as the French in particular sometimes did, run into this type of problem against an opponent who has either one or the other. Many other examples include the Lancastrians at Towton, the German and International armies during all of the Hussite Crusades... Charles the Bold in all of his fights against the Swiss, the (mostly) French Crusader army at Nicopolis, the Crusaders at Hattin, the Hungarians against the Mongols at Mohi, and the French several more times against the English and on and on and on. Roman history is full of similarly unequal battles against poorly organized opposition. So is Greek history. It was frankly commonplace.

Didn't we already have a thread on this or am I having Deja-Vu?

BD

[Michael Chidester]

Didn't we already have a thread on this or am I having Deja-Vu?

That's what I thought, too, but last time it was about how the French could have won at Agincourt.

[Thearos]

Yes, it turned into a discussion of the "english way of war" (and BD discussed longbowmen in E. Prussia). Here my question is what actually happened in the melee at A.

Did the French line collapse at Agincourt ?

[bigdummy]

I think they pushed themselves until a critical mass of them got very close to exhaustion, and they got into a bottleneck with all the terrain features that John mentioned, and their force collapsed. Not their line, their morale and unit cohesion. If you read about some of those other battles I mentioned (like Towton) you'll see a lot of similarities.

G.

[Thearos]

One way of putting it might be combat differential at the sharp end.

All things being equal, if you had a big block of fighting men meeting head on a smaller block of fighting men, the bigger block should win, by mere attrition, or perhaps by weight (though the latter is debateable: see e.g. A. Goldsworthy on the mechanics of Greek phalanxes).

At Thermopylai, the combat differential is that the Iranian combat troops are facing troops (Spartiate elite guardsmen, Arkadians, Boiotians, cycled through day by day) which are better armed and armoured (longer spears, bigger shields, full armour), better trained (notably in manoeuvers: the Spartiates did a feigned retreat), and probably supported by lots of light armed troops (notably helot batsmen acting as missile troops from the hillside on the Persians' unshielded right). The various Greek troops held their ground, and the Persian troops were simply fed into the meat grinder. Which again I can't very well visualize: does it really produce heaps of the dead in front of the line of shields ?

At Agincourt, the combat differential is that the French men at arms have marched up a muddy field while being shot at by longbowmen. The English line is fresh enough to resist the first contact and to keep fighting; this resistance is enough to cause the French block to concertina and lose cohesion (rear ranks keep pushing on ?). But what's happening at the sharp end, the meat grinder ? Lots of engagements between men at arms with shortened spears, swords, polearms. The French must be losing these systematically: because of exhaustion ? Or perhaps because of the press not allowing them the footwork and space to fight effectively. If they break, there also is nowhere to run, because of the armour and the mud.

[admin]

In addition to all of the good points above, I think that Agincourt can almost be seem like an assault during a siege, rather than a battle per se.
I think the geographical position the English army was in was absolutely critical, as at Crecy. I also think that the wooden stakes probably played a very important part. For all we know, every archer planting their stake in front of the English lines had created virtually a wall. If every archer planted a stake then we're looking at up to 5000 wooden stakes across a frontage of only about 100 yards. They may also have put a shallow trench in front. The French were effectively storming a fortification. And as we know, it is not at all unusual for a few men to be able to defend a fotification from a large number of men.

[Thearos]

An assault under missiles, then against a rested opponent with better terrain-- makes sense.

Barker says that the English actually moved down from their position, to provoke the French into moving. I assume the archers had time to hammer in their stakes as soon as they saw the French cavalry charge ?

Also: the stakes would have been to the side (if that's where the archers were) ? To channel the men at arms into the killing zone ?

[admin]

I think that the stakes would have been across the whole front line. This is what is shown in Burgundian drawings. Nobody knows whether the archers were only on the wings or not, but leaving a gap in the middle of the stakes would have been stupid IMHO. Also, having effectively a pallisade in front of the English lines really helps explain why the English line was not really driven back, despite having a huge weight disadvantage.
I think another point worth reiterating is that the French did not attack in one group. They essentially split into groups and took turns... so at any one attack they may not have outnumbered the English much. If 20 guys split into groups of 2 and take turns at attacking you then you are only ever fighting 2 guys at a given time.

One thing I have never been able to think of a good explanation for - if the French were able to attack the English baggage train then why were they not able to attack the English army in the rear? Clearly there was a way around the English position...

[Thearos]

Looked again at Keegan, Face of Battle, on this phase of the battle-- hyper-active and imaginative, but not bad, in imagining the archers swarming individual men at arms on the edge of the French ranks, and also the "fluid mechanics" within the crowd. Also thinks that the continuous pressure from behind did for the combat ability of the front ranks of the French; thinks if the French had exercised better discipline, they should have driven in the English line.

[admin]

By the way, it may be a very minor factor overall, but English armour was generally better suited for fighting on foot.

Another factor worth considering is that at Poitiers (according to Froissart) the English archers unleashed at point blank range into the French men at arms (the famous quote refers to piercing the sides of the helmets/visors of the French men at arms). If at Agincourt the stakes were indeed numerous enough to form a virtual pallisade, then the archers may well have continued shooting into the flanks of the French force at point blank range for quite some considerable time, whilst the English men at arms and pallisade pretty much just pinned them in place on the front. At that range (say 20 or 30 yards) it is very possible that a lot of men at arms were badly injured through armour (at weak spots) by arrows. Not to mention the fact that huge numbers of the French were not fully armoured men at arms, but rather militia with piecemeal or minimal armour.

People may go on about how hard it is to wound a man in state of the art early-15thC plate armour, but frankly I don't think it is any easier with a sword or spear! Arrows at point blank range and in volume are just as likely to find a gap as a hand weapon is, and they have roughly equivalent piercing power as a sword or spear.

[bigdummy]

Have you ever read about the Battle of Nicopolis?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... The_battle

"The French charge crushed the untrained conscripts in the Turkish front line and advanced into the lines of trained infantry, though the knights came under heavy fire from archers and were hampered by rows of sharpened stakes designed to skewer the stomachs of their horses. Chroniclers write of horses impaled on stakes, riders dismounting, stakes being pulled up to allow horses through, and the eventual rout of the Turkish infantry, who fled behind the relative safety of the sipahis. Coucy and Vienne recommended that the French pause to reform their ranks, give themselves some rest and allow the Hungarians time to advance to a position where they could support the French. They were overruled by the younger knights who, having no idea of the size of the Turkish force, believed that they had just defeated Bayezid's entire army and insisted on pursuit.[20]

The French knights thus continued up the hill, though accounts state that more than half were on foot by this point, either because they had been unhorsed by the lines of sharpened stakes or had dismounted to pull up stakes. Struggling in their heavy armor, they reached the plateau on the top of the slope, where they had expected to find fleeing Turkish forces, but instead found themselves facing a fresh corps of sipahis, whom Bayezid had kept in reserve. As the sipahis surged forward in the counterattack sounding trumpets, banging kettle drums and yelling "God is great!", the desperation of their situation was readily apparent to the French and some knights broke and fled back down the slope. The rest fought on "no frothing boar nor enraged wolf more fiercely," in the words of one contemporary chronicler. Admiral de Vienne, to whom was granted the honor as the eldest knight of carrying the French standard into battle, was wounded many times as he attempted to rally the morale of his countrymen, before being struck down dead. Other notable knights who were slain include Jean de Carrouges, Philippe de Bar and Odard de Chasseron. The Turks threatened to overwhelm Nevers and his bodyguard threw themselves to the ground in silent submission to plead for the life of their liege lord. Notwithstanding the declaration of jihad, the Turks were as interested in the riches that could be gained by ransoming noble captives as anyone else, and took Nevers prisoner. Seeing Nevers taken, the rest of the French yielded.[37]"
Sound familiar?

This type of warfare is a very physical activity. You have done HEMA so you know how exhausting even 5 minutes of fighting can be. Now imagine a crazy type of HEMA tournament, in which you walk up a very long staircase, stopping to fight every few minutes, in 60 or 80 lbs of armor. I believe heat also plays a major role here as armor, especially plate armor, does not breathe and heats up the wearer badly.

I think it was normal in battles of this period for troops, especailly armored troops fighting on foot to come out of the line and rest if they could, as you can see some Polish Knights doing in this contemporary (i.e. 16th Century) painting of the Battle of Orsha

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... -08%29.jpg

Also remember that when heavy cavalry are fighting dismounted, they are not wearing armor which is designed for fighting on foot.

But armor is not a necessary component of this type of scenario, I am aware of battles in WW II and Korea in which vast numbers of American soldiers just reached the point of physical exhaustion and surrendered or simply quit fighting and let themselves be slaughtered. Same thing happened to the Japanese fighting against American Marines at Guadalcanal and New Guinea on several occasions. Romans also exploited similar morale collapses of poorly armed indigenous European warriors in vast numbers on several doccumented occasions. So did the Mongols. I think the rain of missiles has a lot to do with it and so do the fluid dynamics in cases like Agincourt. But it's basically a morale collapse combined with exhaustion which can and does happen to almost any military unit under the right kind of combat stress for long enough.

BD

[admin]

Yes, I think that's a good summary.

Nicopolis is a fascinating battle and raises very similar questions as Agincourt. Funny that Boucicaut got his ass handed to him at both!

[bigdummy]

Maybe he was like the Medieval French version of Flashman and his reputation was all fake

BD

[bigdummy]

Yes, I think that's a good summary.

Nicopolis is a fascinating battle and raises very similar questions as Agincourt. Funny that Boucicaut got his ass handed to him at both!

You know what else is interesting? You know who was also at two major military disasters of the time but on the winning side? Jan Ziska fought with the Poles at Grunwald / Tannenburg (where the German knights had a siimilar collapse) and later fought with the English at Agincourt. He went on to become one of the most important leaders of the Bohemian armies which defeated pan-European Crusaders in exactly this manner 5 or 6 times during the Hussite wars.

BD

[admin]

What a fascinating guy... I hadn't really taken note of him before. Shame that the Wiki page doesn't mention his involvement at Agincourt, but I see from Googling that he was there. I wonder what the background to his involvement is - do you know?

[Thearos]

Not to mention the fact that huge numbers of the French were not fully armoured men at arms, but rather militia with piecemeal or minimal armour.

That's very plausible, especially if the van was made up of men at arms, and the milling rear made of militiamen-- they would be most exposed to the arrows enfilading them-- their movements and fluxes making the "fluid dynamics" worse for the front fighters

[admin]

Well if we accept that the French army contained around 10,000 fighting men (which is fairly conservative I think), then I think it is fair to say that only about 30% of them could really have been wearing full plate armour? I find it hard to believe that the French could field more than a few thousand men wearing full plate harness. If you look at German and Italian tomb effigies from this time it is surprising that some still show a considerable amount of exposed mail armour, and that is on the tombs of comparably wealthy men at arms. There were plenty of poor men at arms who could not afford tomb monuments... what must they have been wearing? A mixture of old mail and coats of plates I should think. Plenty of places for arrows to stick there.

If we now fast forward to the mid-15thC you have a far higher percentage of men at arms in high quality all-encompassing plate, coupled with guns that can nullify the English habit of entrenching and pallisading (as happened at Chastillon). And you see lots of French victories.

[bigdummy]

I think it's just a reckless disregard for the physical limitations of the army, and the (closely related) lack of coordination of reserves and so on. It's basically just amateur hour that comes along with overconfidence. Faced with an enemy which is

1) Well protected / shock infantry
2) Capable of raining down missiles upon you
3) In a good position (on good defensive ground)
4) Well disciplined and / or well led

The recipe is disaster.

Another good example of this is the original battle of Tours in 733 AD, with Charles Martel playing the role of Henry V and the overconfident Arab cavalry playing the role of the French Chevaliers.

I think this is just a pattern which repeated over and over. The Medieval French in particular tended to eschew strategy or any practical considerations and rely on courage and individual skill at arms to carry the day, because for heavy-cavalry that often worked as we can also see in many many historical examples. In fact you could almost say that the culture which was required for really good heavy cavalry was also a culture which made careful tactical considerations difficult to implement.

BD