So how could the French have won Agincourt ?

[Thearos]

1. By historians who mostly focus on Crecy and Agincourt, familiar and rousing stories.

2. It's relevant because it is good evidence, for longbowmen in action, from an unexpected source, that does not feed into the way the debate is usually framed (C14th-15th, post Black-Death, pre-War of the Roses England vs Valois France). The source is observers drawn from the Teutonic Knights, i.e. unusually perceptive and inquisitive in military matters.

--if I understand the debate correctly.

(slightly edited for syntax)

[Wolfgang Ritter]

Yes I think up to World War II, the German Hanse cities tended to think of themselves as linked to other Northern European towns and were much more international in their outlook, and sympathetic to England and Holland for example, than to say, Bavaria. Lubeck and Cologne and a few other towns wouldn't let Hitler speak in the early 1930's, Hamburg, Bremen, Straslund and Cologne and several other old Hanse cities were considered enemies by the Nazis. Hitler passed a special law against them when he took power, removing the last of their Rights of autonomy (and their right to call themselves Free cities).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cityb ... itler.html

It's ironic that by a cruel trick of geogrpahy they happened to also by the towns most easily in range of English and American bombers after the Nazis took over.

BD

Hmm, OT, but still: it's true that there were cities that opposed the NSDAP. We shouldn't forget that the Nazis actually reached a 43,9% in the last Election for the Reichstag; that means they were the biggest party but only took over due to a coaltion with the conservative party DNVP.
But I wouldn't draw a line between Hanse - Anglophilia - opposing the Nazis.
There are a more similarities in northern german dialects to english than in southern german dialects. But then, english language derives from germanic languages. The closer economical ties between big trading places like Hamburg (or former ones like Lübeck) din't necessarily resemble a closer political relationship.
After all, the NSDAP reached 38,9% in the last election 1933 in Hamburg. Not really an island of opposition.

The greater Hamburg act of 1937 was more of a restructure of overcome borders, but not that much a politically motivated revenge.
The modern federal states of Germany were explicitely restructured by the Allied Gouvernment after 1945; something like the modern federal states of Northrine-Westfalia, RHineland-Palatinate and even my own Hessen never existed as acounty, dominion, state, realm or whatever in history before the end of WW II. We have still quite a confusing mixture of federal states/administrative areas etc. in Germany after WW I and the abolition of monarchy.

[admin]

To Thearos.
No, it's not really relevant, because it doesn't contradict the original assertion, and only supports it in a fairly limp and dubious way. The original assertion was that in the mid to late-14thC (until the advent of field artillery and other technologies/tactics) the English army would have wiped the floor with most European opponents, not just the French. This 'evidence' only shows that a small force of English soldiers performed well outside France. Not exactly earth-shaking stuff and certainly not contradictory to my statement.

[Thearos]

Fair enough. But I'd say that the evidence sounds pretty cool.

Relevant to the argument: if the longbowmen perform fine (but not battle-winningly) in the E. European crusades, this might suggest that the longbow or even the English way of war is not the battle-winning juggernaut *outside of certain optimal conditions (i.e. right type of conflict and ideal enemy). -- which would directly affect the idea that the English war machine would have wiped the floor with *any opposition in the years 1350-1400.

So the crux is really what BD and you have been debating: is the English force (under Bolingbroke ?) in the E. European crusades deployed sub-optimally, because it doesn't have the critical mass, and is used in penny-packets (this is what you're claiming, with the conclusion that the campaign in Prussia doesn't affect the argument).

-- or is the English expeditionary force in fact a miniature version, well integrated, of the "English formula" (heavy infantry on foot, some knights, and longbowmen)-- deployed together in tactically correct ways on the N. E. front-- and failing to make much of an impression (this is what BD is claiming)-- with the consequence that the English war machine would not have been invincible in 1350-1400, since the proposition was in fact tested-- in Lithuania and Prussia.

(slightly edited to try to make it less incoherent)
I dunno the facts. The debate is probably solvable quite easily, i.e. someone here is right.

[admin]

No, you're missing the point.

This 'evidence' is not sufficient to proove anything right or wrong - it is not evidence, because:
a) the English soldiers are recorded as performing well, and;
b) it was not an English army, only an expeditionary force that was part of a Prussian army.

So it is not evidence at all. It is simply an interesting tangent, nothing more.

[Thearos]

I await BD's intervention to see, er, the evidence. Or "evidence" if you prefer-- on how the English expeditionary force fought in Prussia and Lithuania. Anything else is begging the question.

(edited because I noticed that in fact BD did not post the numbers of English longbowmen).

[Thearos]

In other words: I'm not missing the point, I'm not sure who I agree with, out of the opposing views put forward by two people who obviously know their stuff, you and BD.

[bigdummy]

I wouldn't say it's shattering proof of anything, but I think it does add nuance to the argument.

That the English recieved some praise is relevant, but in the context of the period not enormously so. The marshal of France Jean Le Maingre was also present during the siege with a substantial force and was also praised by the Germans for the quality of his cavalry. French and Burgundian cavalry were the most sought out generally by the Order. Neither force made a really big impression however. They thought the English were good, similarly Poles were considered good heavy cavalry, Finns the best scouts, Swedes good sailors, Russians good heavy infantry, Prussians, and Lithuanians (particularly Samogitians) were the most prized light cavalry, and obviously Tartars were the best horse archers and so on. But the only real stand-outs among European troops are the Bohemian infantry especially handgunners and crossbowmen who had become increasingly important in the second half of the 14th Century and were sought out by all sides as mercenaries. They were basically the Swiss of the East, by the 15th Century (after the time of the Battle of Grunwald in 1410) Bohemians were the deciding factor in many if not most of the key land battles which took place both in the Baltic region and also in Hungary. They were the key element in victories by both tthe Teutonic Order and the Poles in the 13 Years war for example and won at least 3 key battles for John Hunyandi in Hungary around the same time period, and several more after that under his son Matthias Corvinus. I believe the Bohemian, especially Hussites, had the standout "war-machine" which was truly effective against both heavy cavalry and horse-archers in Central Europe.

My personal opinion is that the "British War Machine" was clearly good, had some of the key elements of a combined-arms force and was very effective in certain types of terrain, against a certain type of enemy. I do not believe they would have perservered against the mid 14th century Swiss* and they did not have a stunning impact in Prussia either, but I believe there is more data to come out both from Prussia in the 14th Century and Bohemia in the 15th, which will shed further light on their performance in these areas. How they would have stood up in numbers against the Tartars I really don't know, though there were at least some encounters between English and Mongol forces so we may be able to find a bit more about that.

In favor of the English is the fact that they didn't get slaughterd in Prussia, as many Crusaders did. It does speak to their effectiveness in scouting and using guides to deal with the very difficult terrain, as well as their ability to listen to their hosts (the Teutonic Order and the faction of Lithuanian faction who they were allied with) who knew the local terrain, conditions, and enemy, which was something the French often famously failed to do such as at Nicopolis.

But at this point we can go around and around in circles, we are basing this argument on relatively little data. Matt, why don't you see if you can find some records of Henry IV 'sCrusade, English records are supposed to have survived and are probably in a University in the UK somewhere, I'm sure they have been scanned and there is probably an article or three about them on JSTOR. I'm going to look through my sources with excerpts from the Teutonic Orders records this weekend, and also on the Hussite Crusades.

I also just learned that there were apparently some English Crusaders fighting with the Lithuanians and Teutonic Order during Vytautus Crusades against the Tartars in 1397-1399, culminating in the disastrous Battle of the Vorskla River in 1399. This was an interesting expedition since the Crusaders initially succeeded in conquering rather vast zones from the Golden Horde (Mongol) territory and captured several thousand Tartars who were sent to live in the Ukraine and later became the Lithuanian / Polish Tartars. The Teutonic knights didn't leave many records of this but I know some re-enactors in Lithuania I'm going to contact them to see if they know of any records in Lithuania pertaining to these events. It would be interesting to see if we can find any anecdotes or records of direct conflict between English Crusaders and Tartar Horse archers on a significant scale.

Certainly Richard I did pretty well during his Crusade in the 12th Century, though I think he relied on Crossbows a lot. Did he use Longbows?

There were also some earlier English expeditions into Prussia but I don't know the details of those yet, I'm going to read through my sources and see if I can find more. My best sources are the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia which was a report by the Order to the Pope, and covers late 12th early 13th Century, which I have an English translation of, and in the Chronicon terrae Prussiae which covers late 13th to mid 14th Century, plus the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle and some others which are excerpted in William Urban's books which I have. Jan Długosz may also have some records on this, I have some excerpts of his history.

Anyway we all have our opinions, and maybe some of us have a certain degree of national pride on the line, but ultimately, I don't have a dog in the hunt and don't care one way or the other which way it turns out. I'm interested in finding out more about all this, as I assume everyone here would be, if not I won't bother digging it up as it will take some effort.

BD

* because as I stated upthread, by 1330 the Swiss had already been through a series of battles against the Hapsburgs, and in the 60 years between Morgarten and Sempach they clearly only improved their war machine, which was already an effective combined arms force by the middle of the Century.

[bigdummy]

The greater Hamburg act of 1937 was more of a restructure of overcome borders, but not that much a politically motivated revenge.
The modern federal states of Germany were explicitely restructured by the Allied Gouvernment after 1945; something like the modern federal states of Northrine-Westfalia, RHineland-Palatinate and even my own Hessen never existed as acounty, dominion, state, realm or whatever in history before the end of WW II. We have still quite a confusing mixture of federal states/administrative areas etc. in Germany after WW I and the abolition of monarchy.

My understanding is that the Greater Hamburg Act ended the vestigal autonomy of the Hanse cities, which had survived since the Medieval period and was used by Lubeck to ban Hitler from speaking in 1932 or 1933. Also the law specifically reduced the status of Lubeck to effectively a suburb of Hamburg.

BD

[admin]

Certainly Richard I did pretty well during his Crusade in the 12th Century, though I think he relied on Crossbows a lot. Did he use Longbows?

Richard's army used both bows and crossbows, and as I understand it they were used as part of his very effective marching column tactic (Richard himself was killed by a crossbow bolt). However, Richard was active in the 12th century and English archery didn't come into its own until the early-14th century. The weapon itself didn't drastically change in form, but the practice of archery became enforced by law from Edward I's time (late-13th century), and this probably resulted in the use of higher draw weights, using better quality wood, more specialised equipment (eg. heavier types of arrow) and hence far more effective archery. By Agincourt, English/Welsh archers had to be able to shoot 12 aimed arrows a minute and it is likely that only the best of the best were recruited. The standard range for practice targets was 240 yards! There is a record of archers being sent home from the Agincourt campaign, because they were not considered good enough.

In my view, I think that the likely reason that Burgundian attempts to copy the English army model never really worked was that they were missing this century of enforcing archery practice on an entire male population. English archery was not revolutionary because of the bows, but rather because of the bowmen themselves. Compare it with riding skill in horse-based cultures or sniping ability amongst the Boers of South Africa. Archery was a way of life in England at that time.

There was a reason that English bowmen were spoken about all over Europe with such respect, paid higher wages as merceneries, and people like the Burgundians tried to copy them. It wasn't because they were just 'fairly good'. They were considered exceptional in their time.

And this is nothing to do with national pride, but hard facts. I mostly practice knightly arts these days, rather than archery, and English men at arms were considered mediocre at best. The Battle of the 30 was a resounding defeat for English knighthood.

[janner]

Information of the use of the longbow during the Third Crusade is illusive. Gerald of Berry claims 2,000 Welshmen took the cross, but only a single welsh archer turns up in the narrative accounts.

I'm back home with my material next week so can provide the necessary references - will do better next time

[bigdummy]

English archery was not revolutionary because of the bows, but rather because of the bowmen themselves. Compare it with riding skill in horse-based cultures or sniping ability amongst the Boers of South Africa. Archery was a way of life in England at that time.

This seems to be the case for most types of specialist troops at the time; horse-archers had to come from a culture of horrse-archery, effective examples of early handgunners seemed to only come from certain areas where they had familiarity with the weapon, and heavy cavalry as well (the French notably). Even crossbow marksmen, contrary to the cliche that they were so easy to use compared to longbows, tended to be recruited from certain areas (Genoa, Switzerland, certain German towns) and were paid double.

There was a reason that English bowmen were spoken about all over Europe with such respect, paid higher wages as merceneries, and people like the Burgundians tried to copy them. It wasn't because they were just 'fairly good'. They were considered exceptional in their time.

They were in the higher tier, but so were many other troop-types.

And this is nothing to do with national pride, but hard facts. I mostly practice knightly arts these days, rather than archery, and English men at arms were considered mediocre at best. The Battle of the 30 was a resounding defeat for English knighthood.

I'm not sure longsword fencing is a 'knightly art' though at least Fiore has some connection to knighthood. Though this is another debate for another thread surely Anyway I thought you were more into saber and the Victorian era these days?

I don't think the English were percieved as "mediocre' Knights by any means, the French were just particularly good cavalry, everyone is good at something after all...

BD

[janner]

I don't think the English were percieved as "mediocre' Knights by any means, the French were just particularly good cavalry, everyone is good at something after all...

BD

During the late twelfth century, according to William Marshal, English knights were often considered less skillful as Henry II had banned tournaments in England. So only those in continentally-based households were regularly on 'the circuit' so to speak - again, references to follow.

[Thearos]

I note from one of BD's post that Jean le Maingre was in Prussia at the same time as Bolingbroke-- is this not the same Boucicault who 25 years later was at Agincourt ? I.e. Boucicault actually even had a chance to see English longbowmen in action while fighting on the same side, and drew no special teaching or conclusion from it.

[Wolfgang Ritter]

Well speaking about the value of me-at-arms, knights, longbowmen, halberdiers, handgonners, crossbowmen; i.e. fighting men in general, you should take in consideration that the period chronicles often disregard a "common soldier" and overestimate the value of a knight. For at least until the 13th century footsoldiers - let's say infantry - were not regarded as a force of importance. The victory of the flemish contingent at the battle of the golden siurs (around 1309 IIRC) as well as the later victories (or at least general performacnce) of the swiss confederates against Habsburg in the 14th century, the armagnac/french in the earlier 15th century and then especially Burgundy in the burgundian wars from 1474 - 1477 were recognized with a lot of surprise about the sturdy and rigid force and discipline of the swiss infantry.

That has probably lead to some misunderstanding, because the famous "swiss pikeneers" weren't actually the reason for the victories. Until the turning iof the century the swiss infantry was - just like the majority of europena infantry units - a mixture of different staff weaponry, pikes, halberds, glaives etc.
They were an exceptionally disciplined and dedicated force, but - at least in the burgundian wars - they had quite some considerable help by the french king, the holy roman empire and last but not least the duke of Lorraine. The famous victories were neither won by some bunch of freedom-lovin' farmerboys from the mountain valleys, nor by sheer pikeneer units.

The chronics of the period make the same mistake or exaggeration than earlier chronics, that is to concentrate on one central detail and skip the rest; in the high middle ages from 11th to around the early 13th century that was the exagerated image of a fully armoured knight and his importance for medieval battle (where it is to note that a "medieval" battle might look different to what we would call a battle); in the late medieval/early renaissance it was the maybe the importance of pike-blocks.

[janner]

I note from one of BD's post that Jean le Maingre was in Prussia at the same time as Bolingbroke-- is this not the same Boucicault who 25 years later was at Agincourt ? I.e. Boucicault actually even had a chance to see English longbowmen in action while fighting on the same side, and drew no special teaching or conclusion from it.

That's not so clear, Christopher Phillpotts has argued that the Marshal and Constable put together quite a workable plan to deal with the archers in the run-up to Agincourt, but they were overruled on the day of battle:

'The French Plan of Battle during the Agincourt Campaign', The English Historical Review, Vol. 99, No. 390 (Jan., 1984), pp. 59-66

It's a bit dated now and Matt Bennett and Ann Curry have added a fair bit of research since Phillpotts' article was published, but it's worth a gander - pm for a pdf

Regards,

[Thearos]

I also note, from skimming narrative histories of the Swiss at war in the C15th, that they in fact did have a knightly class and high-bourgeoisie, who fought on horseback and in armour, as heavy or light cavalry, and produced the "officer class". I wonder if this class is well experienced in warfare, tactics, and good leadership.

When do the Swiss move from the halberd to the pike ?

[Wolfgang Ritter]

I also note, from skimming narrative histories of the Swiss at war in the C15th, that they in fact did have a knightly class and high-bourgeoisie, who fought on horseback and in armour, as heavy or light cavalry, and produced the "officer class". I wonder if this class is well experienced in warfare, tactics, and good leadership.

When do the Swiss move from the halberd to the pike ?

Don't mistake the term "confederation" for a sort of republican structure of the state. Of course there was nobility and high-bourgeoise citizens in the conglomerate nowadays known as Switzerland; very much alike the rest of Europe. The "oath" of the early union around 1291 IIRC between the cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden was of course an opposition to the aristicratic Savoye and Habsburg. But nevertheless it was a sort of union which not uncommon in the late medievals, the outcome decades later was very different.

My knowledge is that infantry units consisting of solely one type of weapons - like a -pikeblock - appear in the last quarter of th 15th ct, but are primarily a 16th ct thing.
Nevertheless you still have a mixture of weapons then, only differently grouped in battle order. The spanish tertio shows the different type of grouping compared to the earlier blocks ("Gewalthaufen" would be the german term) which were using more ranks into the depth of the formation; being a very rigid force, but difficult to move in fast maneouvers or flankturns.

[bigdummy]

Don't mistake the term "confederation" for a sort of republican structure of the state. Of course there was nobility and high-bourgeoise citizens in the conglomerate nowadays known as Switzerland; very much alike the rest of Europe. The "oath" of the early union around 1291 IIRC between the cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden was of course an opposition to the aristicratic Savoye and Habsburg. But nevertheless it was a sort of union which not uncommon in the late medievals, the outcome decades later was very different.

Actually I would tend to disagree with this. I think it's more accurate to say the Eidgenossenschaft while a mixture of different types of social systems leaned pretty strongly 'republican' in it's politics. There were rural republics, there were also some aristocrats, powerful Church leaders, and there were both "Patrician" cities and "Guild" Cities. But in the 14th -15th the two most important cities were both "Free Imperial Cities" (freie Reichsstadt) ruled by their own elected governments with a mixed Guild - Patrician Administration (Zurich* since 1336, consisting of a burgomeister and a Great council of 212 members including 78 from the craft Guilds) and a Guild Administration (Berne since 1274, which was ruled by a burgomeister, a high council of 27 members and a low council of 200 members, all elected positions, dominated by the Craft Guilds), and the three most important rural Cantons, Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden had peasant republics governed by Landsgemeinde which is ruled by all armed men in the district voting in a direct assembly.

These Democratic institutions eroded later on in the 16th and 17th Centuries but during the medieval period it was very real.

They still do this in Glarus and Appenzel-Innerholden, incidentally.

Nor was this unheard of in other parts of the HRE, there were several powerful stadtbund or city leagues of course, and rural democracies as well, the Dithmarshen in Saxony is probably the most famous example of the latter, they were a 'peasant republic' and on a local level they were just as tough as the Swiss were, fending off multiple invasions throughout the middle ages and up to the 16th Century.

So I would say the Swiss Confederation while mixed was predominantly made up of more democratic or republican "type" regimes than most of their opponents, and they most definitely had a class awareness of their relatively unusual if not at all unique role in European Politics. That isn't to say nice; these were arrangements of limited enlightened self interest not idealistic style democracies, a "democratic" town like Berne was just as oppressive to the peasants which lived in their district as any Aristocrat or the gentry, if not more so. The Swiss were known to raid into Germany, Italy, Austria and even France from time to time.

And there were also still Princes in the territory of the Eidgenossenschaft, throughout their history. But the Confederates did take an explicit anti-aristocratic (and often anti-Clerical) tone in a lot of their rhetoric during the Medieval period, particularly during wartime. After Grandson they collected all the pointed shoes of the Burgundian aristocrats who ran away and used to make fun of them, I've actually seen some of them in the castle they have them on display (or did about 15 years ago). This animosity existed on both sides, the Burgundians and Germans called the Swiss "Cow Fuckers" and "Milk Drinkers" and before the Burgundians hung the garrison at Grandson they were calling them rebel trash and peasant trash. Duke Charles the Bold rationalized breaking his word to spare the garrison on the basis that they were commoners and had no honor.

As for the German Emperor's and French support of the Swiss in the Burgundian wars. It did exist but I wouldn't overestimate the effect. They helped lure the Swiss to get involved in the war with their silver, but they were not building up the Swiss armies. And the forces of the Duke of Lorraine were beaten back or routed in several of the battles during the Burgundian wars. The HRE was back at war with Switzerland by the end of the 15th Century, a war that they knew was coming for a long time (which they lost, incidentally). Maximilian was trying to get control of Burgundy and didn't want an independent Swiss confederation as a neighbor.

My knowledge is that infantry units consisting of solely one type of weapons - like a -pikeblock - appear in the last quarter of th 15th ct, but are primarily a 16th ct thing.
Nevertheless you still have a mixture of weapons then, only differently grouped in battle order. The spanish tertio shows the different type of grouping compared to the earlier blocks ("Gewalthaufen" would be the german term) which were using more ranks into the depth of the formation; being a very rigid force, but difficult to move in fast maneouvers or flankturns.

I agree with this, the Swiss armies like the other infantry-heavy armies of the day were mixed, and until the end of the 15th Century Pikes were only part of the mix, they tend to get over-emphasized. It was as you say the discipline, drill, formations, and the use of scouts and so on, which made the difference. (It's also notable that the Swiss frequently carried longswords as sidearms, which you can see quite a bit in period art from the 14th, 15th and 16th Century). Cavalry was a mixture of rural gentry, some aristocrats, and patrician / konstafler from the towns. They also used a lot of mounted crossbowmen as scouts.

BD


* Interestingly the landlord Zurich was fighting with for much of their history was a Benedictine Convent, whose Abbess was the ruler of the town until the 14th C.

[bigdummy]

By the way I don't know if anyone noticed this when I pointed it out up thread but there were 3,000 English Longbowmen at the Siege of Nueses during the Burgundian wars and they did not have any significant effect (other than getting involved in a riot) or help win the siege.

BD