"Henry V's archers vs Wellington's redcoats: Who would win?" Topic

Hi

Anvil, just to be clear, I have made bow, crossbow, muzzleloaders(as well as pilum, francesca, martiobarbuli and other such toys), so I might actually know what I am talking about involving the costs.

I find it interesting that there is polarization going here. No where have I indicated that bow is unbeatable, or gun. I am trying to fairly discuss the subject.

The brits didnt and couldn't "conquer" the world with longbow because of the simple problem of a small country with no logisitical or popular support for even the revauche in france. And there were never enough.

"Longbow" isn't a magic wand. At agincourt, having the best 6000 the king could hire isn't the same as saying "all longbow anywhere". Anymore than saying all rifelmen are "marine scout snipers". Most of the rabble with AKs(rifles) in the world have an effective engagement range under 200 yards. But I can take my Remington and put them all in your chest at a thousand meters.

Both sides of this "discussion" seem to insist on comparing "my side's optimum situation against your side's worst".

Which mean we are losing the "light" in this discussion as people try to "prove" things.

Rocky

Rocky..

And to make it clear,, I know you have made weapons,,and I am supporting you i this discussion,,, :) no matter how poorly si may have "Forged" my words,, Btw,, I have made x-bows,,and musket parts, locks,trigger guards etc,, all but the barrel,,which is a project "in the fire" so to speak,, but not from a kit,,or cleaning up castings,,but from scratch you might say..by hammer in hand.

As a side note,, i think its interesting to note,,that the use of the longbow by the English,,and their success, is perhaps one of the early indicators of the British favoring firepower in that great ole argument of Column vs line,, or firepower vs charge.

And, from my point of view, i have seen nothing here that does not refute the actual strengths and weaknesses of the two weapons..

rate of fire

accuracy in well trained hands,]

range

all things being equal with the training of the man at the working end,, the English longbow wins hands down

the drawback that ended the use of the English Longbow.

the time it took to make an English longbowman that could sustain that rate of fire, hit be bull consistently at long ranges compared to the time it took to train just a competent man wielding a musket.. means the musket wins out in the long run,, hands down,, whilst in a one off battle,, the English longbowman kicks big butt!!

Please note i said English longbowman…meaning one trained in England, used by the English army as a professional soldier.

un ami

what i know of asian\indian firearms is that for reasons only to be speculated about,, the development of firearms in these areas ceased around the development of the matchlock\wheellock type of firearm.

my spec on this,and purely spec is that with the widespread cultural use of many types of bows and the coming of the Europeans with a higher tech firearm,, the use of the bow just won out, and development of blackpowder weapons ceased.

"The only campaign vs. the Turks that did result poorly was that of 1710-1711. In this campaign, the Turks did mobilze more quicky and deeply than expected and surrounded the Army of the TSAR Peter with 3x – 4x the number of men. A negotiation favorable to Turks resulted."

isn't this the campaign lead by Charles XII of Sweden,, when and how he won his way back to Sweden after his great Russian campaign? Interesting that this victory was in fact lead by a leading General from the West…

@anvil1

The Turk head of state was Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III.
The Turk field commander was Grand Vizier Baltacı Mehmet Paşa.
Charles XII did not command from their side. He escaped Poltava wounded and went to their court to seek their engagement.
The main fighting was in Moldavia (far from the Crimea, but one assume some Crimean Tatar levies did serve).
The negotiated peace included return of the fortress city of Azoz to Turks, the stop of Russian fortification of Taganrog (these more nearer the Crimea) and the release of the Swedes from Poltava allowed to return home. Charles of Sweden did oppose the Turks to sign the treaty, but they did sign against his wish.

Not the real question, but after the Crimea was conquored by Russia, Crimean Tatars did become a service peoples much as Bashkirs, but armed like Cossacks (no bow and arrow that I do know of). They did local police and defense and were called some times to the Army, including in Napoléon era.

- votre ami

un ami

Just to clarify,,

In 1709, Charles XII., hoping for support from the COSSACKS who rose in rebellion in 1707/08, marched into Ukraine from Poland; in the BATTLE OF POLTAVA the Swedish force, weakened by a pursuit of the Russians through areas where the Russians pursued their SCORCHED EARTH POLICY, where decisively defeated by the Russian army. Charles, now without an army, fled to Constantinople, where he convinced the Sultan to declare war on Russia ( Oct. 1710 ) and give him command over the Ottoman army ( RUSSO-OTTOMAN WAR of 1710-1711 ) .
( link )


Charles XII. encircled the Russian army, with Czar Peter, on the RIVER PRUTH ( 1711 ) ; Peter had to accept Ottoman conditions which included safe passage for Charles to Sweden and turning AZOV over to the Ottomans.
( link )

anvil

Sorry I meant to include this as well,,to complete the story,,,

Russia ceded Azov to the Ottoman Empire. Charles XII., however, stayed at his 'residence' in Bender / Bessarabia and left, ignoring an order to leave, left only when a force was sent to expel him ( 1713 ) ; he went to Norway where he commanded a Swedish force fighting the Danes and Norwegians.
( link )

His conduct of the whole campaign,, both this one,,and his "journey" across Russia is a very interesting read.

sorry for stealing the thread,,

anvil

Most here seem to be ignoring the 800 pound gorilla on the discussion forum: logistics.

That being said, both weapons were lethal. Comparing them is a bit on the silly side. They arose and were used for very different reasons.

@anvil1

I think specialists (Russian, Turk, Suede, etc.) will think about how much Charles of Sweden did give guidance, did negotiate, did make requests, did command, etc. the Turks in 1710-1711. I am not such, and so it would be not good to be making a comment on your excellente summary, for which I do thank you.
(I looked fo rone in English language, and did not quickly sucha good link as did you.)

Still, one did mention the whole thing because the idea of calling Mongols to fight Crimean Tatars, it did a rise. That was the part that seemed all new to me.

Thank you again, very much.

- votre ami

un ami

actually,, my thanks to you,, I am doing research on the GNW,,and info here is pretty slim. But the real area where info is hard to find is the Ottoman empire for this timeframe, and later, so your statement gave me a moment to check my sources,and perhaps see if you have anything on the Ottomans that I had missed?

anvil

As an old ( and I do mean old ) longbow archer and a Napoleonics enthusiast for more years than I care to remember the following post on our forum may be of interest.

link

:)

falkonfive

falkonfive. Very interesting thread you had going there.

Your observations are spot-on with mine, right down to the point where you talk about the French corpses at Agincourt: "At Agincourt there was a wall of French dead they say 6 feet high 200 yds from the English lines, the French climbing over it who survived might have got another 100 yards but then probably ended up with a 33" splinter in the throat." (emphasis mine) So you are not naysaying or corroborating that inconceivble claim. Being a Keeganophile myself, I certainly don't believe the literal picture as portrayed in the Gesta (the earliest of the Agincourt accounts, a mere two years after the fact).

There isn't anything inherently inaccurate about the longbow compared to other bow designs. I suspect that the responder to your comments who thought so, was using the wrong arrow "spine".

Also, your observation that a longbow could not be shot from horseback isn't true: I saw Sean Connery and Nichol Williamson do it in "Robin and Marian!" :) Of course, turning the bow to a mostly horizontal angle completely ruins your aim. There was a reason why northern Borderers used a light crossbow and not a bow from horseback.

Hi

I saw someone in the thread mentioned Doyle's "white company", which along with Featherstone, Hardy et al is more "bow porn" to me.

Grin.

On the CA on gun control, I offered that the euros never liked military weapons in the hands of the peasants, versuse the american experience where commoners with guns on the frontier was the only choice. My british friends keep insisting that "not true, never against the law, nobles not better armed"…arguments.

But on your link, it is taken for granted. I remember reading a specific french refrence where the king ordered and the nobles ignored the edict.

Rocky

Thanks for the Link, falconfive. Especially the bit about the specialised task of the Marksmen at the front of the wedge. A bit like Rifles in the skirmish chain….

Makes one wonder doesn't it.
A weapon with a fire rate, accuracy, and range to rival the LMG, mowing down vast hordes of armoured Frenchies; and yet everyone dropped it in favour of a pathetic pop stick that barely hit a barn door at twenty paces.

Clearly military types have a long history of being utter blockheads.

Unless of course the years of building muscle and bone to pull the damn thing properly, and needing a skilled industry constantly churning out thousands of carefully grown & crafted straight arrows with chosen feathers all meant that a mere generations peace was all that was required to consign it to history.

Well I do believe that the reason Henry won was not because he had thousands of Longbowmen but rather for the fact that the ground was rain soaked and the terrain funneled the French into a very tight area.

So after the initial charge the ground was chewed up into mud that slowed down the French who were packed into a small area.

So what probably happen was that the initial line of horse ended up falling and then the French who were behind did the same. So the riders who were wearing around 70-80+ lbs of armor could not get up and many ended up drowning in the mud.

Yes it is true the Longbowmen could fire down into the mass French but from what I have read they ended up joining the Hand-to-Hand combat. The French in their heavy armor were quite slow on the ground but the Longbowmen wore leather armor if any and could probably run circles around the French.

Now armor would provide some protection against arrows but bullets tended to pack a little bit more punch, which is why individuals stop wearing full armor after the muskets got better.

Shields were develop to give some protection against arrows and sword blows but offered no protection against bullets. So because of this the use of bows in warfare became less and less while the use of muskets grew.

"Unless of course the years of building muscle and bone to pull the damn thing properly, and needing a skilled industry constantly churning out thousands of carefully grown & crafted straight arrows with chosen feathers all meant that a mere generations peace was all that was required to consign it to history."

Well the English had several generations of peace after they won the 100 Years War, didn't they?

PS and don't try to feed me that science fiction bull about Formigny and losing Calais. I'm wise to those tricks…

I repeat my original post.

They might be 400 years apart but they were on the same side.

The French lost both times.

….a mere generations peace was all that was required to consign it to history.

Bingo! the peace following the WOTR, at the very same time that gunpowder weapons were increasing everywhere, caused an enormous diminution of skilled fletchers. Roger Ascham's book on archery ("Toxophilus") right up front in the Apologia, says: "I trust no man will be offended with this little book except it be some fletchers and bowyers, thinking thereby that many that love shooting shall be taught to refuse such naughty wares as they would utter." In other words, the quality of bows and arrows had seriously degraded by the mid 16th century, such that Ascham knew many in the business were likely to take offense at his exposé of their poor quality. Not only poor quality, but there was insufficient fletchers to meet the former needs of the English army, i.e. a lack of a ready arrow supply. This decreasing trend continued as gunpowder weapons increased. It was a natural and unstoppable process of change from the "national weapon" to the accessible ones.

I think the question would really have to be: On a Napoleonic battefield, would the line infantry have been better served by longbows or muskets? Cannon and rifle armed skirmishers would probably have an increased effect against a naturally deeper formation of longbowmen. On the other hand, the longbowmen could reasonably open up at 200-220 yards (which is what they trained for – 300-350 yards was something the better archers could do, but the whole unit couldn't) against opposing formations and keep up a greater volume of fire over a musket formation.

But honestly, in a world with massed bow fire, you would probably find the musketmen going medieval on you, and returning to plate armor. The longbow chewed up chain armor at 80-100 or less, but Crecy kicked off the plate armor race in earnest for a reason. By the time of Agincourt, the longbow was still great at nailing cavalry, but even in muddy plowed fields the dismounted knights and men-at-arms the french had to wade through, the longbows didn't stop the french from closing and resolving the combat in melee. Gunners from the medieval world tended to have a fair amount of armor in the recognition that they needed to get closer and sustain a higher incoming volume of fire.

Not to mention the size of Napoleonic armies made building sufficient quantities of longbowmen and maintaining that number extremely difficult given the time it took to train the archers to be proficient. From the practical standpoint, the archers took too much time to develop.

It makes for an interesting what if, but a sustained war would probably favor the muskets in the long run.

Couple more points concerning the debate which readers may find of interest. Most of you will know of the recovery of the 'Mary
Rose', a Tudor warship which sank in 1545 on her brief but eventful maiden voyage. Amongst the items recovered were some cases of longbows which were remarkably, once dried out and treated, in pretty good order. A friend and fellow longbow enthusiast was summoned to examine and pronounce on the sacred artifacts. ( Sacred to us anyway, we would have killed to obtain one :)) He found that they varied in draw weight between about 65lbs and some monstrous samples of 100 lbs or so. He was nearly reduced to tears when the authorities chose the biggest and putting it on an infernal machine drew it until it shattered. I believe the gauge read 108lbs at 32".

The exercise though gave us some interesting information and food for thought. Firstly in his words they were crude and obviously mass produced with little indication of 'tillering' to produce a smooth and more accurate bow. This fitted with what we had always thought. The army issue longbow was devised for one thing only i.e To get arrows in the air in the general direction of the enemy and rely on the law of averages. Of course, we are talking of bows made 200 years after the heyday of the weapon but for those who followed the link in my earlier post and read of the 'herce' formation one thing becomes clear. There really was no point in spending time and therefore money ( and governments certainly haven't changed in 600 years in that respect ) in producing a weapon that could only be used to lay down a barrage. The large majority of archers in an 'herce' could shoot no other way but 'up' and not 'at'. So the bows were heavy enough to propel 33" of 1/2 diameter arrow with a substantial lump of metal on the end to the maximum distance. During my long and turbulent affair with longbows in competition my favourite beast was a 50lb Oregon yew bow ( only place we can find suitable yew these days !!) with 5/16" cedar shafts and target piles. This combination probably delivers maximum accuracy especially when the shafts are spined ( matched ) to the bow. Great for card target faces on straw but hit someone with it at 100 yds and it wont be fatal ( unless its a heart or a head shot ) and NOBODY ( especially yours truly ) can achieve that sort of accuracy with a longbow.

So back to the question, a Napoleonic army versus a medieval English one? Who comes off best? Well, those nice columns of attack would be in serious trouble. Perfect target. Dropping clothyards would decimate 'em. But then of course, how would the bowmen fare against light infantry in open order? and those dense blocks of archers, what a lovely target for artillery.

If you can stand to go on a little further couple more items of interest. Some years ago I was lucky enough to spend some time at Agincourt ( Azincourt ) as it was and is still these days helping set up a visitor centre for the local tourist board. One of the events organised was an archery competition on the field itself. Naturally archers attended in droves with begged, borrowed and stolen longbows. For the first time in 500 and some years we actually managed to form a herce on the field. Small but impressive. About 150 archers. The first volley was a revelation. One thing nobody had thought about. Our modern archers were in the main shooting target arrows with relatively small fletchings, The noise the arrows produced in flight was chilling, a kinda cross between a JU87 and the biggest bee swarm imaginable. Now substitute the huge grey goose fletchings necessary to stabilise a clothyard shaft and increase the numbers by a factor of 10 and you have the ultimate terror weapon. Makes one wonder how the average conscript may have felt plodding to within musket range.

Several people have mentioned plate armour as the answer to the longbow arrow. Certainly it would have helped, but good plate was very, very expensive and far beyond the means of the common soldier. After Agincourt the markets of Northern France were full of English archers selling armour stripped from the dead nobility of France. Chain mail was no protection against a bodkin point. It just spreads the rings apart and penetrates but even mail was prohibitively expensive. So it looks like our Napoleonic team are gonna have to go in unarmoured.

Last point concerns ammunition supply. Yes, the great rate of fire of medieval archers meant you needed a huge amount of arrows to start but heres the great thing. Assuming you are the winners then all you do, after you have stripped everything off the enemy of value of course, is to walk two hundred yards from your lines and pull 'em out of the ground ( or a dead adversary if you have a strong stomach ) and put 'em back in your quiver. Could be a problem with spent musket balls!!

So the debate continues, maybe the only way to answer it is to try it out. Ok, you Napoleonic re-enactement people start organising. Now,where did I put my bowstring??

Apologies and thanks for your attention,

Falkonfive

@Friend of Sam Mustafa

IIRC it was the French that won the 100 Years War

"Several people have mentioned plate armour as the answer to the longbow arrow. Certainly it would have helped, but good plate was very, very expensive and far beyond the means of the common soldier. After Agincourt the markets of Northern France were full of English archers selling armour stripped from the dead nobility of France. Chain mail was no protection against a bodkin point. It just spreads the rings apart and penetrates but even mail was prohibitively expensive. So it looks like our Napoleonic team are gonna have to go in unarmoured."

The best plate was very, very expensive. Reasonably effective but much cheaper plate was available "off the rack". Saying that they couldn't go with plate in the Napoleonic era when they found a way to armor gunners in the medieval and renaissance periods just doesn't seem to be a valid point. A more valid point is that they may not have needed the step (cannons and skirmishers followed by low replacement rate would probably do the trick). The archers at Agincourt were selling armor after the battle, but that hardly means that they did the bulk of the killing with the longbow – again, the battle was decided in the melee, and was not the turkey shoot that Crecy was.

ok, so the Napoleonic army vs longbow men questien is aperantly never going to be answerd. but what about a ACW army, here you have minie ball muskets with an effektive range of at leat 400 yards in good hands.

they could simply stand at 400 yards and open fire, the archers would have to either run for there lives, or march 200 yards before they could fire. I think those 200 yards would break them, the archers were't used tp gettong shot at, epecaly from range they them self could not get

The 100 Years War was not 100 years but in fact 116 years i read this sometime back.

Captain Gideon

Hi

Falkon… Not all the staves on Mary Rose went down with the ship. A few were recoverd, and a long time ago Saxton Pope was invited to examine them. He did so, but found them "unfinished". So, he replicated a few, and finished one that started as looking to be 110#, but was 85 after being properly shaped. He used the bow and a period broadhead to take a Grizzley at 75 yards! He also did an interesting test with some rivited Damascas chain from the University that he worked at. And punched it.. (long silly story with the curator offering to WEAR it during the test…but I digress. those were "the days").

I did some testing 30 years ago on the same lines. What I observed is that chain acts as a "shot box" in modern terms. That is, it tries to just defeat the point. And I could not make chain good enough to defeat a bodkin off a 70# at 75 yards.

Gunfreek. I agree. ACW rifled muskets often engage and start killing at 500yds with the minie. 300 with round. I am afraid that my minies are a little inconsistant, though. Skirt spread is irregular. Sometimes it shoots about 4" groups, then variance in powder or metal, and the moa is closer to 12.

Compared to 36" for the smootbores.

Rocky

Piss on it. Give 'em all an M-1 Garand and see what happens. Finest implement of battle ever devised. Patton said it so you know its got to be true right?

Rocky,

Hi,

Heard some of the Saxon Pope saga. Never knew about the Grizzly tho! The chain we played about with was just butted and that took long enough to put together. We also did some very scientific research on a friends broken down old Ford figuring that plate would'nt have been too different :). There weren't many places where it didn't punch straight through, even on some of the curved surfaces. As you say, those were the days……..No doubt you have come across the story of archers carrying a pot of wax to dip the tip of the bodkin in?? So the story goes it lets the arrowhead punch through even curved surfaces. Never tried that one, early anti-armour rounds!!

Rocky..

rivited Damascas chain,, have you any other info on this? historical info i mean…

considering the cost of the needed materials,,much less the time invested,and rarity of remaining artifacts, it raises the hackles on the back of my neck thinking of shooting a hole in it as I am sure stress testing a 300 some year old resurected long bow past the breaking point did to you falconfive!! :O

such is the mentality of University officialdom… sheesh,,

i did a search and found this contemporary thread on damascus mail… interesting site link

Hi

Anvil, most of the stuff I talk about beyond my own tests for plausability are out of old books. Pope being a university level prof was allowed to go through colections and study, even stringing and shooting. that included the armor test. The museum administrator thought that the idea it would be harmed by an arrow preposterous. Thus agreeing to a test. Anyway, unlike Strickland and Hardy, or featherstone and the like, Pope didn't do "bow porn". It is worth hunting down the books. Judge for yourself. He is also the researcher involved with "Ishi" that was made into a movie(fairly close to the truth) called "Ishi: last of his tribe". In the course of the book, he discusses how indian bow techniques were different in sevral ways that western.

Fal…I did similar stuff, but actually went so far as to make the armor and test it as well. Even just a plain steel cap would penetrate commonly. The various eastern and western armor points were scary. They didn't just penetrate, but tended to tear the steel and put large wedges of metal INTO my mannikin. Sort of "stapling" the armor onto "him".

Rocky

I have glued hundreds of lead longbows to hundreds of lead longbowmen so I should know what I'm talking about. Sorry couldn't resist. Here are some replies to comments made on this site and on a site referenced in this posting.

1. Amazing statement. "Went down a few minutes later". Just how quickly do you figure a battle like Agincourt lasted? It probably took the French infantry the better part of five minutes to cross the water-logged, plowed field. Any man who had taken an arrow wound was out of the battle, either at once or in a "few minutes".

Several sources say about three hours.

2. "Well, if Agincourt had been the last battle of the 100 YW, much of France would now speak English. The reason it doesn't is because the French cavalry got better armour and put it on their horses as well. If all you arrows are bouncing off, you don't get to stop many cavalry charges."

At Poitier, when the bowmen fired directly at the mounted men-at-arms on barded horses their arrows simply bounced off. They had to be moved to where they could obtain flanking fire.

3. "Take 5000 archers at Agincourt. Drawn up in the traditional 'herce' formation."

Only the author of the Gesta describes this formation. All other sources who describe the English battlefield set up describe the archers only on the flanks of the men-at-arms, not between the battles.

4. At Agincourt at least there were carts traveling up and down the line heaving out sheaves (144) arrows in bundles.

I think the author is thinking of Crecy. Henry marched two thirds the length of the battlefield leaving his camp behind him. There is no record of wagons accompanying this advance.

5. Average range if ya point it at 45 degrees about 200 yds. So IN THEORY 1500 x 8 arrows a minute falling 200 yds out. 12,000 arrows x 3 falling over a 700/800 yd frontage.

I believe the archers took about 100 arrow each with them. If they fired at the rate of 8 per minute, they would run out of arrows in approximately twelve and a half minutes. I acknowledge that the author admitted that this rate was not sustainable. Nevertheless rate of fire was not a factor in the battle. There had to have been some kind of fire control to insure that arrows all fired together and to insure archers would not run out prematurely.

6. "I personally have shot one thro a pigs carcass wrapped in mail at 60 yds. In one side and out the other. In fact a clothyard will penetrate objects a crossbow bolt will have trouble sticking in and I don't even think a magnum bullet will penetrate 3" of oak as a lonbow shaft has been known to do."

Again, I think this is irrelevant. The archers were firing arching fire. This meant that most of the power the arrows had was the energy they picked up as a result of falling downward. Thus evidence of the power of the longbow as a direct fire weapon had little relevance to how it was used at Agincourt.

7. "At Agincourt there was a wall of French dead they say 6 feet high 200 yds from the English lines, the French climbing over it who survived might have got another 100 yards but then probably ended up with a 33" splinter in the throat."

It has been convincingly shown that you cannot stack human bodies six feet high in the open field. The author of the Gesta was using a bit of poetic license. And, a close reading of the Gesta will show that the French casualties lay before the men-at-arms and not the archers.

8. "Yes it is true the longbowmen could fire down into the mass French but from what I have read they ended up joining the Hand-to-Hand combat. The French in their heavy armor were quite slow on the ground but the longbowmen wore leather armor if any and could probably run circles around the French."

We all acknowledge that the longbowmen must have had terrific physiques in order to draw those powerful bows but then assume the French men-at-arms had little experience wearing heavy armor. The French men-at-arms probably spent as much time , or more, practicing fighting with that armor on as the longbowmen exercised with their bows. Their physiques were just as admirably suited to fighting with 60 pounds of armor as the longbowmen were firing their bows. In addition, once the bowmen stepped into that ankle deep muck the French were in they would be moving as slow as the French with no armor to protect them.

9. "Several people have mentioned plate armour as the answer to the longbow arrow. Certainly it would have helped, but good plate was very, very expensive and far beyond the means of the common soldier."

At the battle of Constance (1356), around 60 years before Agincourt, the French crossbowmen, protected by their pavises and armor, simple waited for the longbowmen to run out of arrows and then stood and forced the English archers to run behind their men-at-arms. At Agincourt, one chronicler reports that the English arrows simply bounced off the armor of the French advancing on foot.

As to who would win? Since neither were armored, the winner would be the one who outranged the other.

Rich

Only the author of the Gesta describes this ["herce"] formation. All other sources who describe the English battlefield set up describe the archers only on the flanks of the men-at-arms, not between the battles.

The Gesta is the best, most detailed account, as well as the earliest and by an eyewitness. It isn't the only one to have the English men-at-arms in three distinct units. Just because flanking archers are the only ones mentioned in some other accounts doesn't mean the Gesta writer was mistaken to claim that the "wedges" of archers between the men-at-arms were there: for one thing, the description(s) of the French dividing into three columns to target the three English battles of men-at-arms (where the standards were) is a clear piece of evidence for three bodies of English men-at-arms, not one mass as lately favored by some seminal writers (e.g. the Osprey campaign series version), depending almost soley upon the (also eyewitness) accounts of Le Fèvre and Waurin (who, borrowing from each other and Monstrelet, cannot in fairness be counted as three separate sources).

Here's the real kicker in the head of the "archers only on the flanks" theory: The maximum range for volley shooting longbows is 250 yards or less. The men-at-arms are in a single body on a frontage of no more than 250 yards, in the center, which makes the entire frontage of the English army, of necessity, no wider than 650 yards. Of course, the consensus is 900 to 1000 yards wide, which means that half the longbowmen would have had no chance to shoot at the French at all! The only sensible formation, therefore, for the English is three "battles", with the men-at-arms in the center of each, and flanked by longbowmen angled forward at the ends: as they lined up, the forward ends of these archer "wings" formed the pointed "herce" or "wedge" formations described by the Gesta between the three "battles" of men-at-arms; while the extreme right and left archer "wings" formed the forward-angled bodies mentioned which reached the trees near Agincourt and Tramecourt.

There had to have been some kind of fire control to insure that arrows all fired together and to insure archers would not run out prematurely.

But they evidently DID run out of arrows. That's why they dropped their bows and entered the melee on the flanks. There is no indication that the second French "battle" was shot up like the first one; it routed away for the most part and got tangled up in the destruction of the first "battle" which was falling apart to the rear, into the face of the advancing second "battle."

Again, I think this is irrelevant. The archers were firing arching fire. This meant that most of the power the arrows had was the energy they picked up as a result of falling downward. Thus evidence of the power of the longbow as a direct fire weapon had little relevance to how it was used at Agincourt.

You either missed what I explained quite a ways back on this thread, or you disagree with it. But here's the fact: a dropping impact angle of c. 30 degrees is only a factor well outside of 100 yards. At mid range, 100 to 150 yards, the arrow impact angle is almost perpendicular to the target surface; inside 100 yards there is virtually no impact angle at all. And inside c. 75 yards, the front rankers would have been the only shooters, because the angle up would have decreased to nil, making it impossible for the rear ranks of longbow to shoot. The front two to four ranks of longbow would be the "marksmen" mentioned by falkonfive: whose rate of rpm would have doubled to c. 12, i.e. producing much the same volume of total missiles into the French, but also being entirely aimed, and much of it from the flanks as well.

Their physiques were just as admirably suited to fighting with 60 pounds of armor as the longbowmen were firing their bows. In addition, once the bowmen stepped into that ankle deep muck the French were in they would be moving as slow as the French with no armor to protect them.

I agree with this mostly. However, you are discounting the 300 yards of advance in a jostling, compacting formation, into the arrow storm; which all the original sources agree was exhausting and decisive. The ankle-deep mud would suck on a yeoman's feet just as much as on a man-at-arm's feet, but the yeomen were not tired out from the ordeal of advancing. Under those conditions, no man born of woman could be in fit condition by the time melee combat ensued. Then Keegan's plausible technique of the longbowmen "double teaming" the French men-at-arms becomes the most believable way that they killed large numbers of them: one yeoman would "bait" the man-at-arms into striking out, the second yeoman would move in from the flank and strike him on the arm or otherwise render him unarmed and in the mud, bodkin through the eyehole, finité.

At Agincourt, one chronicler reports that the English arrows simply bounced off the armor of the French advancing on foot.

Which account says that? In all the eyewitness accounts, the Gesta, Waurin and Le Fèvre, the effectiveness of the arrow storm is clearly described. The later the other accounts are, the more distorted, undetailed, or concocted they are.

Among other things, a study of the accounts of Agincourt, beginning with the Gesta in 1417, and continuing into the 16th century, is an interesting examination of how history gets distorted: e.g. Polydore Vergil is egregiously inventive, even including English cavalry on the wings, "outside" the stake "fence", who help repel the French mounted attack!

@B15F15H "@Friend of Sam Mustafa

IIRC it was the French that won the 100 Years War"

Someone needs to have their irony detector recalibrated.

Just caught up with the above posts from Rich K and LordL. As the debate seems to be concentrated around the Agincourt aspect at the moment heres maybe some information to chew on. As I mentioned in a previous post I was lucky enough to spend the best part of two years doing the research and setting up the audio visuals for a visitor centre there. I got to know the battlefield like my backyard. It hasn't changed terribly in 600 years ( or hadn't up to 10 years ago ) . If you stand on the English lines and look towards the French position the 'funnel' that is formed by the woods of Tramecourt and Azincourt is still very obvious. The woods have thinned out quite a bit. The land still belongs to the Tramecourt family whose ancestors fought and died there . ( On the French side of course ). Scientific investigation has never taken place. The family won't allow it. They prefer to leave it in peace. The fields that the French advanced over are pretty much unaltered. I have seen it after heavy rain in October when the battle was fought and it is heavy going with pools of water in abundance. One thing immediately becomes clear and that is the French advancing from Ruisseauville where they were encamped on the eve of the battle did so for about half a mile over the worst type of ground imaginable if you are in armour and on foot. Thick thick mud. They locals say that the fields are planted with much the same crops as were grown then. You have to take this with a pinch of salt but personally I'm pretty sure that it was ploughed ground even then. So first lets consider the cavalry aspect. The man in charge nominally of the French was Marshall Boucicault. He was an old soldier who knew his way round the Hundred Years war. He was adamant. 'Do not advance', wait'. The English are tired, sick and cut off on their line of retreat to Calais. It was good advice, the seige of Harfleur where they had landed had taken far too long, disease was rife in the beseigers lines and Henry's numbers were cut drastically. The triumphant invasion of France had turned into a diplomatic withdrawal to an English stronghold. The French had tracked them all the way and Azincourt was the French Waterloo. A spot picked by them to stop the English. Boucicault's position was in name only, there were several nobles in the French army who far outranked him and considered the affair was going to be a 'walkover'. Shakespeare in the play Henry V
tells us of the gambling in the French camp the night before for prisoners that thay had not yet taken. Shakespeare is certainly not to be relied on but it demonstrates the absolute confidence that must have existed amongst the French that the battle was going to be the upstart Henry's downfall. The French army, huge by comparison, was fresh, well equipped and totally confident of victory. Boucicault prevailed however and sure enough the three great 'battles' or lines were set across the top of the Azincourt 'funnel'. Boucicault had placed crossbowmen in the front line. These were ejected and their places taken by French lords keen to be the first to get to grips with the English and claim the honour. It was yet one more misconception in a day full of mistakes on the French side and amazing luck on the English. Henry arranged his army, almost certainly numbering about 5000 archers and 2000 men at arms and spearmen, before Maisoncelles. At this point the distance seperating the two was probably in excess of a mile. Henry's hope was that the French would advance. Time was not on his side. With little in the way of provisions and many sick in the ranks time worked against him. After some time, nobody knows how long, Henry gave the orders to pull up the stakes set and advance to within bowshot. There runs between the villages of Azincourt and Tramecourt a small road which would have been a track in 1415. It lies conveniently at the base of the 'funnel'. It was this position that Henry reached and probably his objective purely for the fact that his ammunition carts could use it to dispense ammunition. I have to disagree with Rich K. There may be no mention of ammunition wagons but Henry would never have considered letting his archers rely on what they could carry. 100 clothyard shafts as he suggests would be too big , heavy and cumbersome and certainly couldn't be contained in a quiver. On reaching the road the archers once again sets their stakes using the great 'mauls' or mallets carried for the purpose. At the French end of the field outrage broke out amongst the nobles. This army of ragged scarecrows had the audacity to advance on the chivalry of France. It doesn't take much imagination to see the first line surging forward rapidly followed by the second eager to share in the spoils and the glory. Boucicault had insisted that the French fought dismounted. Even the novices amongst them could ee that horses would be too good a target for the bowmen. The lessons of Crecy and Poitiers and other minor engagements had at least sunk in. That was to all but a few of the high nobility who refused to fight dismounted, perhaps no more than 200. But it was enough to start the chain of calamity that was to result. The body of horse, although slowed by the heavy going reached to within 200 yds or so of the English lines. The obvious happened. Horses maddened with pain from arrows turned and fled back eventually reaching the first French line advancing. And advancing in full armour on thick muddy ground. The horses caused mayhem, bursting through the French ranks. Still the French advanced and now the geography of the battlefield started to apply. As they advanced down the field the 'funnel' of the woods pressed them closer together. By the time they came within range of the herces it must have been literally ' fish in a barrel'. Whether or not the heaped bodies reached 6' is really irrelevant. But there must have been an awful lot. The ones behind, heads down to avoid the arrowstorm pressed forward, many must have stumbled on fallen friends and added to the confusion as yet more came forward over them. And still the brave French pressed forwards. There is no doubt that hand to hand fighting took place. The first French battle, comprising mostly of high ranking French would have headed towards Henry and their social equals. Whether they ignored the archers as not worthy of their steel or shied away from the arrows nobody will ever know. But those that did reach the English men at arms met opponents fresh and prepared with room to swing swords while the exhausted French were so closely packed they could hardly raise their sword arms. LordL is of the opinion that the archers ran out of arrows and then joined the melee. I personally think that seeing the French in such dire straits the natural tendency of the English yeoman to earn a fast buck by taking a valuable prisoner was more likely the case. Whatever, Agincourt, celebrated as such a noble victory must have been carnage. The picture of English archers laying about with their great mauls and felling French soldiers is not particularly glamorous. The traditional and much repeated casualty figures I find hard to accept. 10000 French dead and around a 100 English. Even so the number of French casualties must been very high and statements that more died through suffocation than through injuries received may not be too far amiss.

Visitors to the battlefield today will find a small grove of trees on the Ruisseauville side of the crossroads where the Azincourt – Tramecourt track crosses the old Calais road. In it and almost unnoticeable from the road is a memorial erected by the Tramecourt family in the early 1900's to the victims of the battle. It is put there as it marks the grave pits in which the majority of the French dead were buried by monks after the battle. I have walked from the crossroads which were the centre of the English lines to the memorial any times and measured the distance. It is a touch over 200 yards. Now if you had the job of burying thousands of bodies where would you put them? Near to where they fell or would you carry them 200 yards and then do it? This alone fits the generally accepted picture of Agincourt. The vast majority of casualties were from the arrows.

I have read the Gesta frequently mentioned and just about every other account of the battle. I attach no more importance to the Gesta other than a valuable contemporary source amongst others. History is written by the winners. Agincourt is fairly self evident to someone who has been lucky enough to spend a lot of time there studying it. It was a far from typical engagement of the 100 years war. The gods smiled on Henry and the French were as responsible for the result as much as English arrows. A combination of pride, and being fought by a generation that had forgotten the lessons learnt the hard way 70 years before.

This in no way decides the debate on the outcame of a contest between a Napoleonic infantryman and a longbowman but I hope it has been of some interest. To end on a perhaps more interesting note after the Battle of Waterloo some English officers detoured to Agincourt to walk the battlefield. It is
said that they unearthed a silver trumpet from the field and carried it with them to London where it eventually found it's way into a musuem. The museum and the trumpet were destroyed by German bombers in World War 2. Similarly the church at Maisoncelles where Henry prayed before the battle ( no doubt desperately for a miracle ) is a modern one. The original stood adjacent to a field where one of the first V1 rocket sites was constructed by the Germans in the 1940's. The ramp and blockhouses can still be seen. The church was destroyed by RAF bombers in World War 2 aiming for the rocket site. Strange isn't it??

falkonfive, from what you've learned, were the English archers able to penetrate the French knights' armour with their shots?

I had always thought that the archers primarily aimed for the horses; but your account suggests this was not the case.

LordL is of the opinion that the archers ran out of arrows and then joined the melee.

I see no reason to doubt the original, eyewitness accounts, which state that the arrows ran out. The fact that your typical English yeoman veteran was keen to get to hand strokes too, simply marks him out as a fully trained warrior and no simple bowman who avoided all hand to hand combat, like virtually every other European archer or crossbowman did.

The traditional and much repeated casualty figures I find hard to accept. 10000 French dead and around a 100 English.

That is one claim. Others put the French at considerably fewer, though still thousands, and the English total well over a thousand, which is believable.

Someone needs to have their irony detector recalibrated.

There is no irony on the internet, just lots of words.

"The Gesta is the best, most detailed account, as well as the earliest and by an eyewitness."

The author of the Gesta was back with the camp and not up with the army.

"Accounts of Le Fèvre and Waurin (who, borrowing from each other and Monstrelet, cannot in fairness be counted as three separate sources)."

Both Waurin and I believe Monstrelet were eye witnesses to the battle. Perhaps it was Lefevre & Waurin who were eye witnesses. So in essence Waurin and La Fevre were simply agreeing with Monstrelet. They both agree that the archers were on the flanks.

"Of course, the consensus is 900 to 1000 yards wide, which means that half the longbowmen would have had no chance to shoot at the French at all!"

The English men-at-arms amounted to around 1000 men. They were in four ranks meaning the frontage was 250 men wide or approximately 250 yards. Monstrelet said the archers were on the wings in front of the men-at-arms. In other words, they were on the wings in advance of the men-at-arms. One historian pictures the archers as curving around like the horns of a bull. This is consistent with Monstrelet. It is probable that there is 2,000 archers to the side. Place them in ranks of 4 and you have archers curving out from the men-at-arms for about 500 yards on each side. In this configuration, all the archers could reach French targets.

"But they evidently DID run out of arrows. That's why they dropped their bows and entered the melee on the flanks."

Check your sources. One source says they ran out of arrows. Another said they dropped their bows and arrows, indicating they still had arrows.

"The front two to four ranks of longbow would be the "marksmen" mentioned by falkonfive: whose rate of rpm would have doubled to c. 12, i.e. producing much the same volume of total missiles into the French, but also being entirely aimed, and much of it from the flanks as well."

This sounds reasonable but is not supported by the sources. Arrows rained down on the French. The front ranks also needed to fire high angle fire in order to reach those French which the rear ranks could not.

"However, you are discounting the 300 yards of advance in a jostling, compacting formation, into the arrow storm; which all the original sources agree was exhausting and decisive."

Reread the sources. The only decisive action by bow fire was against the first attack by horsemen. There is no indication that bow fire had any effect against the French foot.

"The ankle-deep mud would suck on a yeoman's feet just as much as on a man-at-arm's feet, but the yeomen were not tired out from the ordeal of advancing. Under those conditions, no man born of woman could be in fit condition by the time melee combat ensued."

Nonsense, I say respectfully. These men were athletes. And we don't know how fast they advanced. At the end of their advance they stopped, fell back a bit, reorganized and sent out three groups to penetrate the English line. The flanks of the French would turn and face the archer attack. The French didn't have to go out and fight the archers. The archers had to come in and attack the French. So the French could stand and wait for the archers to attack.

Keegan's plausible technique comes from his view of medieval battle. The whole thing breaks down into a mass of individual combats. This is the kind of thing Hollywood portrays quite well. I'm not saying he got his idea from Hollywood. The men on the flanks don't have to fight this way at all. They can just stand shoulder to shoulder to fend off the archers.

"Which account says that? In all the eyewitness accounts, the Gesta, Waurin and Le Fèvre, the effectiveness of the arrow storm is clearly described."

Jean Juvenal des Ursins. His account was about 15-20 years after the battle but he lived at the time of the battle. But before you say this was time enough for distortions to enter the account, here is what Froissart says happened at the battle of Auray, 1364.

"And so at the first encountre there was a sore batayle, and truely the archers shot at the beginnyng right fiersly; how-beit, their shotte dyde lytell hurt to the Frenchemen, they were so well armed and pavysshed."

Auray was 50 years before Agincourt. By the time of Agincourt armor had become so effective that men-at-arms could do away with shields. As to the Geste and the arrow-storm, here is what he wrote:

"But the French nobility, who had previously advanced in line abreast and had all but come to grips with us, either from fear of the missiles which by their very force pierced the sides and visors of their helmets, or in order the sooner to break through our strongest points and reach the standards, divided into three columns, attacking our line of battle at the three places where the standards were."

He was trying to explain why the French stopped and re-grouped. To paraphrase him, they stopped either because of injuries from arrows OR to reorganize to more effectively attack the English line. We know from other sources they paused to reorganize. In other words the fire from arrows did not stop the French advance.

Here is what Le Fevre and Waurin wrote:

"Because of the strength of the arrow fire and their fear of it, most of the others doubled back into the French vanguard, causing great disarray and breaking the line in many places, making them fall back onto the ground which had been newly sown."

The arrow storm they discussed was against the French mounted attack. When it came to the dismounted attack both wrote that the archers dropped the bows AND arrows.

Rich

Here are some thoughts from falkonfive.

1. "I got to know the battlefield like my backyard. It hasn't changed terribly in 600 years."

I don't see anyway that statement can be confirmed without a study of the Tramecourt manor records. Unless that has been done, the statement is unsubstantiated. Thus, trying to estimate what happened 600 years ago based on what we see today if very iffy.

2. "Henry arranged his army, almost certainly numbering about 5000 archers and 2000 men at arms and spearmen, before Maisoncelles."

Why almost certainly? The best estimate I've come across is 4,000 archers and between 900 and 1,000 men-at-arms.

3. I have to disagree with Rich K. There may be no mention of ammunition wagons but Henry would never have considered letting his archers rely on what they could carry.

Why not. The archers were not restricted to carrying all their arrows in a quiver. I don't think we can make up events on the strength of what we thought Henry was thinking. Especially in the absence of any record of that event. After all, having no convenient replacement arrows would explain why some writers said the archers ran out of arrow.

4. Boucicault had insisted that the French fought dismounted. Even the novices amongst them could ee that horses would be too good a target for the bowmen. The lessons of Crecy and Poitiers and other minor engagements had at least sunk in. That was to all but a few of the high nobility who refused to fight dismounted, perhaps no more than 200.

This completely ignores the French battle plan for the Agincourt campaign. This plan was discovered in the 1990s and outlined both mounted and dismounted attacks on the English. It also ignores the sources that complain the French had planned to go in with a larger mounted contingent and that it failed because there were not enough mounted knights.

5. "As they advanced down the field the 'funnel' of the woods pressed them closer together. By the time they came within range of the herces it must have been literally ' fish in a barrel'" "Whether they ignored the archers as not worthy of their steel or shied away from the arrows nobody will ever know."

The problem with the ‘herce' idea is that if the French got close enough to the English line to charge the English men-at-arms. And they did. They would have been within striking distance of the archers. The stakes were not designed to keep foot out. They were designed to keep mounted forces out. The armored French foot would have gone through the unarmored bowmen like a knife through butter. Once through, they would have attack the English men-at-arms from the rear. The idea that the archers were socially beneath the French men-at-arms and not worth attacking is silly. There are too many battle descriptions in which French men-at-arms purposefully attack the archers in order to drive them from the field. The campaign plans for the Agincourt had two units of cavalry designated to attack the English archers. You can't have piles of Frenchmen lying in front of the English line and have the French crashing into the English men-at-arms. We have too many sources saying the French organized three wedges and hit the waiting English. If there had been herces between the English battles, the French would have gone right through them.

6. "LordL is of the opinion that the archers ran out of arrows and then joined the melee. I personally think that seeing the French in such dire straits the natural tendency of the English yeoman to earn a fast buck by taking a valuable prisoner was more likely the case."

Le Fevre and Waurin: "And soon afterwards, the English archers, seeing the breaking up of the French vanguard, came out from behind their stakes) all together and threw down their bows and arrows, taking up their swords, axes and other arms and weapon. They struck wherever they saw breaks in the line."

The archers didn't attack until AFTER the breakup of the French vanguard. They didn't attack the French head on but where there were gaps in the line.

7. "It is put there as it marks the grave pits in which the majority of the French dead were buried by monks after the battle." "The vast majority of casualties were from the arrows."

That may be tradition but that makes no sense. The vast majority of the French killed were French nobles. I'm sorry but I don't see them throwing hundreds (or even thousands) of French nobles into a common grave. Their families would have wanted the bodies in order to give them proper burials. How was it determined these were French nobles from the battle of Agincourt and how was it determined from the skeletons that they died from arrows?

8. "History is written by the winners." Hackneyed cliché. We have a number of good French sources for the battle.

9. "Agincourt is fairly self evident to someone who has been lucky enough to spend a lot of time there studying it."

I'm not disparaging on the site study but you can't take it for granted that the site now is what the site looked 600 years ago. The only way to adequately understand the battle is through the a deep and thorough study of the sources. If the sources confirm the battle site looked the same then as now fine. If they don't then we need to rethink the battle from the standpoint of the sources.

Rich

Take the 95th Rifles (light infantry) and send them forth … they would use the natural terrain and they have a tendency not to present a large target (up, prone, up, prone etc)… the important note is that they would move forward … once in close, they use those pig pokers on the end of their rifles….

Besides…. do you really thing the longbow would be better than guns and artillery if they switched over in real life…

Hi

Rich, I am left confused by your post. You seem to be saying that the archers didn't kill anyone except mounted. That "modern" armor was so good it couldnt be hurt, shields were no longer necessary, but 10,000 french lost to 1000 british MAA in a melee and their armor superiority did them no good when the archers dropped on them without armor and assorted melee weapons?

R

And we "engage" in the contest of: "whose narrative (or perspective) of the battle makes the best sense out of the evidence?"

The author of the Gesta was back with the camp and not up with the army.

Then why didn't he get involved in the French attack ON the camp? He mentions that only the "tail end of it" was sacked. And that the king moved his baggage up behind the army, and when he "thought that almost all this baggage had reached his rear", then he launched his advance. The author of the Gesta was "then sitting on a horse among the baggage at the rear of the battle." He wasn't back with the camp at all, but within a few hundred yards at most directly behind the English battle line.

Both Waurin and I believe Monstrelet were eye witnesses to the battle. Perhaps it was Lefevre & Waurin who were eye witnesses. So in essence Waurin and La Fevre were simply agreeing with Monstrelet. They both agree that the archers were on the flanks.

Monstrelet was not an eyewitness. Le Fèvre was with the English, Waurin was with the French and was a mere 15 years old at the time. Neither compiled their chronicles till "mid-century" (Currey p. 135). And, if their agreed accounts are taken literally, then there was no reason for the French to divide into three columns at all. Of course there were archers on the flanks. Nobody is disputing that. The Gesta says: "…the French cavalry posted on the flanks made charges against those of our archers who were on both sides of our army." He simply mentions that "wedges" of archers also separated the three battles of men-at-arms, and that they had stakes as well.

The Gesta chronicler has more details to share with us than any other account, and he is completely individual, depending on no other writer: Le Fèvre, Waurin and Monstrelet, the other most detailed writers, all depend on each other, and wrote much later (a closer eyewitness to the time of the events described can generally be taken to be more reliable in his memory).

One historian pictures the archers as curving around like the horns of a bull.

One historian is allowed his personal conjecture. No "horns" is mentioned at all; merely, "archers…in front in two wings". The trouble with projecting like the horns of a bull is that you then must have considerably more English in order for them to reach into the woods on either flank, which is clearly stated as the case (Gesta). Your "4,000" archers would have their flanks exposed well short of the trees, thus denying what an eyewitness described. (But in fact, 4,000 archers is probably far short of the actual number, so I only make this point to illustrate conflicting details that we so easily fall into when trying to piece this together.)

Place them in ranks of 4 and you have archers curving out from the men-at-arms for about 500 yards on each side. In this configuration, all the archers could reach French targets.

Yer math is off, my friend, if you think 500 yards on each side can reach the French vanguard compacted to reach a single body of men-at-arms only 250 yards wide in the center: only the nearest half of archers would be in range.

Check your sources. One source says they ran out of arrows. Another said they dropped their bows and arrows, indicating they still had arrows.

Both are undoubtedly correct: some parts of the English line had run out of arrows, others were getting low: archers started to emerge from behind their stakes to attack hand to hand, and it became rapidly what the majority of archers decided to do.

"The front two to four ranks of longbow would be the "marksmen" mentioned by falkonfive: whose rate of rpm would have doubled to c. 12, i.e. producing much the same volume of total missiles into the French, but also being entirely aimed, and much of it from the flanks as well."

This sounds reasonable but is not supported by the sources. Arrows rained down on the French. The front ranks also needed to fire high angle fire in order to reach those French which the rear ranks could not.

It isn't denied by the sources; such technical details are not mentioned by the sources at all. We conjecture and test our theories to see if they can agree with the sources. We know that the average English archer was, well, average; the best of the best were the mentors of the whole body and had reputations; they would hardly be consigned to the REAR!

Your picture of trajectory shooting is not accurate. Arrows don't "rain down" on anything when it is short range shooting.

The rear ranks can only shoot when there is a trajectory, i.e. mid to long range. They don't see the target: they mimmick the angle and degree of the other shooters around themselves, who are all watching what the ranks in front of them are doing, and so to the front ranks who CAN see the target and establish the visual of angle and degree; then the command "loose!" is given and the entire mass shoots.

And the front ranks were only slightly closer to the French than the rear ranks: again, I think that you are picturing this inaccurately: if the front rank bowmen were in range, all the bowmen were in range and visa versa. The English stood in as dense order as possible, side to side and front to rear. That's the only way that clout shooting works: density of missiles arriving on target in the same sized area (as closely as possible) as the area the bowmen occupied.

Reread the sources. The only decisive action by bow fire was against the first attack by horsemen. There is no indication that bow fire had any effect against the French foot.

You're misremembering the clear description of the Gesta. AFTER his account of the failed cavalry assault, he says: "But the French nobility, who had previously advanced in line abreast and had all but come to grips with us, either from fear of the missiles which by their very force pierced the sides and visors of their helmets, or in order the sooner to break through our strongest points and reach the standards, divided into three columns, attacking our line of battle at the three places where the standards were."

That is a perfect description of aimed, pointblank shooting by "marksmen". And it isn't against mounted troops.

"The ankle-deep mud would suck on a yeoman's feet just as much as on a man-at-arm's feet, but the yeomen were not tired out from the ordeal of advancing. Under those conditions, no man born of woman could be in fit condition by the time melee combat ensued."

Nonsense, I say respectfully. These men were athletes. And we don't know how fast they advanced.

If you mean that nobody has put on a suit of period armor and trudged across the rain-soaked field of Agnincourt, I respectfully say, you are mistaken. I bet that falconfive can deny this claim of yours.

The original sources offer a picturesque denial that "athletes" could ignore the conditions of the ground. (I am frankly surprised that you even question this at all.) "…the French had been all night on horse and it had rained. Pages, servants and several others in exercising the horses had completely churned up the ground making it so soft that the horses could scarcely lift their hooves out of it. In addition, the French were so weighed down by armour that they could hardly move forward. First, they were armed with long coats of armour, stretching beyond their knees and being very heavy. Below these they had 'harnois de jambes' (leg armour) and above 'blans harnois' (white, i.e. polished armour). In addition they had 'bascinets de carvail'. So heavy were their arms that as the ground was so soft they could scarcely lift their weapons."

At the end of their advance they stopped, fell back a bit, reorganized and sent out three groups to penetrate the English line. The flanks of the French would turn and face the archer attack. The French didn't have to go out and fight the archers. The archers had to come in and attack the French. So the French could stand and wait for the archers to attack.

Pure, unsupported conjecture on your part. The Gesta: "Nor, in any former time which chronicle or history records, does it ever appear that so many of the very pick and most sturdy of warriors had offered opposition so lacking in vigour, and so confused and faint-hearted, or so unmanly." Le Fèvre and Waurin say: "The French began to bow their heads, especially those who had no shield (pavaix), because of the English arrow fire. The English fired so vigorously that there were none who dared approach them, and the French did not dare uncover themselves or look up." Monstrelet joins them in saying: "So they advanced a little against them, but then made a little retreat. But before they could engage together, many French were hampered and wounded. When they came together they were so closely packed one against the other that they could scarcely lift their arms to strike their enemy, save for those who were in the front (emphasis is mine) who struck with their lances which they had cut in the middle so that they could be stronger and so they could get closer to the English." (Then they mention the mounted attack on the flanks out of sequence and how the routing elements of this "…[fell] back onto the ground which had been newly sown. Their horses had been so troubled by the arrow shot of the English archers that they could not hold or control them. As a result the vanguard fell into disorder and countless numbers of men-at-arms began to fall.")

There is no evidence of your disciplined plan to await the English by turning to meet them. These guys were smashed together because of the funneling effect of the arrows from the flanks, their own apparent desire to not engage the archers in the first place, and the lay of the ground.

Keegan's plausible technique comes from his view of medieval battle. The whole thing breaks down into a mass of individual combats.

You are misremembering or misreading what Keegan said. He posited that the first victims of the English archers were those men-at-arms who were already on the ground or had just shakily risen to their feet, the dregs of the mounted attack and such French men-at-arms who were starting to rout away from the vanguard. The archers caught up with those at once and dispatched them. Then they enfolded the flanks of the vanguard and began to kill the outer-most men who were easily outnubered by the mob of nimble archers. Keegan rightly supposes that the French within the vanguard would not have seen a thing and would have had increased pressure put upon them from the recoiling of the outer men-at-arms from the English archers' attacks. The "tumbling effect" would have increased to include the flanks as well as the front, as the rearmost ranks of the vanguard continued to press forward.

Incidently, the Gesta's unique account of this "tumbling effect" of the outermost ranks going down and the followup ranks falling over them, is only exaggerated as to its claimed depth, "above a man's height": I have heard of reenactors at Hastings in previous years (this is from Paul Murphy who has participated in many or all of them), who "died" and formed a "heap" so thick that it was as high as Paul's waist: he said, looking at the English banner bearer, "that man is mine." But when he tried to reach him he found that he couldn't move: he was waist-deep in "bodies". If you consider that most of the French among the fallen at Agincourt were very much alive and struggling to escape, then this "heap" of the fallen would be thick and deep enough to make anyone clambering over or atop it well above the normal head height of those standing on the ground. I have noticed that people constantly exaggerate the depth of snow; it would be so easy to see this "heap" of the fallen as "above a man's height" when the most nimble English fighters have climbed up and over it, their heads and weapons far above those standing on the ground; and we have the Gesta's clear description: "…our men began to pull those heaps apart and to separate the living from the dead." Keegan apparantly made the mistake of assuming supine, unmoving bodies only as comprising what the Gesta chronicler was discribing: but instead the main mass were not dead and would have struggled to get out of the press, thus causing this "heap" to be much deeper than inanimate bodies lying like "cord wood" on each other. There is nothing unbelievable whatsoever about the Gesta's description of the French caught in the "tumbling effect" and forming a "heap" with their bodies.

At Agincourt, one chronicler reports that the English arrows simply bounced off the armor of the French advancing on foot.

"Which account says that?"

Jean Juvenal des Ursins. His account was about 15-20 years after the battle but he lived at the time of the battle. But before you say this was time enough for distortions to enter the account, here is what Froissart says happened at the battle of Auray, 1364.

<quote>And so at the first encountre there was a sore batayle, and truely the archers shot at the beginnyng right fiersly; how-beit, their shotte dyde lytell hurt to the Frenchemen, they were so well armed and pavysshed."</quote>

Auray was 50 years before Agincourt. By the time of Agincourt armor had become so effective that men-at-arms could do away with shields.

Jean Juvenal des Ursins is describing the mounted attack: "the horses turned and it seems that those who were mounted on them fled, or so is the opinion and belief of some, and they were blamed much for this. The French were scarcely harmed by the arrow fire of the English because they were well armed." So this supports the hypothesis that long range bow fire goaded the French cavalry into their initial assault, which, the horses being largely exposed to dropping arrows, were the first cause of its rout and failure. The armored riders were hardly in range yet to be pierced by arrows directly. Juvenal's description of the balance of the battle is too vague to be of any use. He does mention the French falling "one on top of the other, many suffocated and others killed or taken." Thus he corroborates the "tumbling effect" without offering enough detail to say how it happened. He also supports the fact that the French were exhausted by the time they arrived to combat range, and ascribes this to the "difficult going." Which is, again, vague enough to be worthless on its own.

You will please notice, that above I have quoted Waurin's and Le Fèvre's very clear and contemporary description of the French armor: it even includes those with shields. The clear description of a mail coat extending below the knees is key here: this armor is not the mid 15th century plate so often claimed for Agincourt when we argue the effects of arrows on plate. "Coat" is always mail. Essentially, at Agincourt the best equipped men-at-arms were in mail with plate defenses over this, i.e. it was not "cap-a-pie" plate armor at all, but still had many areas protected by mail underneath and even above (the "coat" hangs over the leg defences of plate). This vulnerable area was anywhere from 5% to 15% of the total target area of a man's body, from the front and flanks, and even more than that from the rear quarter. The point is, that Agincourt is still within the period of plate armor development. Froissart mentions shields even more specifically, naturally, because plate armor was even less comprehensive in his day. This transition period in armor saw increasingly ineffective use of single-hand weapons; the shield got largely dispensed with in favor of two-hand weapons, and the armor increased in completeness accordingly. By Agincourt, the shield had largely, but not entirely, disappeared. A cut down lance would be perfectly manageable with one hand, and shield in the other.

We know from other sources they paused to reorganize. In other words the fire from arrows did not stop the French advance.

I would like you to show that the French paused to reorganize once they were in short range of the longbows. The descriptions I understand indicate that their advance was more chaotic and unstoppable the closer they got to the English line; that the "pressure of the mass of men behind" made any stopping to reorganize impossible and in fact contributed directly to the defeat of the French vanguard.

Nobody who knows what they are talking about says that the English arrows stopped the French advance (all the sources agree that hand to hand fighting comprised the final, decisive event in the battle). But the arrows sure did hurt the advance and may have mortally wounded it.

Here is what Le Fevre and Waurin wrote:

"Because of the strength of the arrow fire and their fear of it, most of the others doubled back into the French vanguard, causing great disarray and breaking the line in many places, making them fall back onto the ground which had been newly sown."

The arrow storm they discussed was against the French mounted attack. ….

But you passed over the (out of sequence) part before this, which very clearly states that by the time the French and English engaged in close combat "many French were hampered and wounded" by the arrows and resulting press.

If the sources confirm the battle site looked the same then as now fine. If they don't then we need to rethink the battle from the standpoint of the sources.

There is agreement close to a consensus, that the field of Agincourt is very close to the same condition it was in the 15th century. I see no reason to doubt this, do you? Nothing falconfive has said about the field today is at variance with the sources describing it.

Hi all,

Apologies for this short thread hijack but I wanted to clear up an issue from earlier in this discussion.

anvil1 quoted from
"Charles, now without an army, fled to Constantinople, where he convinced the Sultan to declare war on Russia (Oct. 1710) and give him command over the Ottoman army ( RUSSO-OTTOMAN WAR of 1710-1711)."

Virginia H. Aksan in 'Ottoman Wars 1700-1870' says the Ottoman field commander at the Pruth was, as Un Ami says, Baltaci Mehmed Pasha, the Grand Vizier. The Janissary Agha, Tartar Khan and several other senior Ottoman officers were also present. Charles however was not with the army on the battlefield and in addition even failed to make the peace negotiations, despite desperately swimming the Pruth in order to do so. He was clearly therefore not in command of the Ottoman army. If anyone would like to discuss it further, feel free to join us at: link

all the best,

Trev

Trev,,

Thanks,, I had seen her book on Amazon,,and it is on my list,, I am always looking for more info on the subject..

Re Azincourt,

Thought this may help to illustrate a couple of things, thanks to Google earth and the wonders of modern technology.

picture

As you can see the right hand ( Tramecourt ) woods are pretty dense. I've walked in 'em and its not easy going. On the left the Azincourt wood has been cleared but according to the locals were fairly substantial even up until relatively recently. Its quite easy to make out the old treeline from what few trees remain dotted about. Its a fairly safe bet that they were as thick as the Tramecourt woods on the day. Together they formed the 'funnel' of Agincourt. The fields in front of the track(where I've marked the English line in red)
are totally flat. No drainage whatsoever and in October then, pretty much as now, would no doubt have been plowed and bare of crops. As you can see there is nothing new on the field of Azincourt. If you stand at the crossroads ( just behind which can be seen the buildings of the visitor centre ) and look towards the French position at Ruisseauville then the only modern thing to be seen beyond Ruisseauville is a water tower. You will notice the road to the left of the battlefield that runs through Azincourt. This carries on down to Maisoncelles and by tradition is the road down which a group of angry and frustrated French knights rode to exact some vengeance on Henry's camp at Maisoncelles.

The debate concerning the archers on the flanks may be decided by the photograph. The only archers who would be in a position to shoot at the French would need to stand on the edge or just inside the trees of both woods. To deploy most of them on the flanks would mean stretching them all the way to Ruisseauville. I like the the idea of the 'herces' with some archers lining the woods either side. Look at the scale and the distance at the neck of the 'funnel' along the Azincourt – Tramecourt track. Around 800 yds?? Its an appropriate frontage for 3 wedges of archers with dismounted men at arms between I would have thought.

Falkonfive

Falkonfive, why three wedges of archers? Wouldn't there only be two, one in between each battle of men-at-arms? There would have been two wedges: or four, with archers beyond any flanking wedges in an extended line to the trees….

Hi LordL,

Good question and you could be right. Reason I go for three is a mixture of the accounts and what I know of the longbow. First tradition has it that the left was commanded by Camoys, the centre by Henry and the right by York. So three distinct 'battles' Now given the frontage of of the English between the two woods i.e 8-900 yds Henry would want to lay down his 'barrage ' fairly evenly across the field. No point leaving a corridor the French could walk through safely. Two herces, left and right, with a range of 200 yds ( ish ) from the edge could have left a fair size gap. Also its down to numbers, say 4500-5000 archers. I doubt very much more than 500 were thrown forward along the woods edge, 250 on each side say. That leaves 2000 a block with 2 herces. That would need to be fairly deep and the ones at the back would lose a lot of range to start with. We have 2000 or so dismounted men at arms to fit in somewhere, if we put 'em in four ranks and allowing say a yard (min ) each thats 500 yds of dismounted men at arms. Thats the same whatever number of herces we have. Its starting to get a little crowded even amongst the Englsh lines!! If we go for three herces, left, right and centre we cover the field, and our men at arms between the bases get packed in pretty tight so maybe more ranks? Whatever, a pretty formidable wall. Four herces would make sense as well, about 1000 archers in each with the men at arms in three lines between the bases. Maybe thats our 3 battles.

In the long run the truth is we just don't know. Henry had advanced the few hundred yards from Maisoncelles and this had goaded the French into advancing starting with the mounted knights. I really cant see all these wonderful geometric formations being assembled in perfect order while the enemy bore down upon the king. Maybe the English just got to the track after a walk over ground conditions much the same as they were for the French and therefore disruptive of any nice neat formation they may have had when they started. The trouble with 700 year old events is any account, written by eye witnesses or not, will not give us the complete picture.

What we do know is that the French had a real bad day and much of it due to their own mistakes. The factors of the ground, the weather, the geography all worked in favour of the invaders. If you stood at Azincourt with a small, tired and largely sick army and looked up towards Ruisseauville and saw a solid wall of colour with as many banners as you had men advancing down upon you then the 'miracle' of Azincourt is that Henry didn't break out the white flags. I probably would have done.

One last thing, many references have been made in these posts
to the effectiveness of arrows on armour. Some may be interested in seeing exactly what was used.

picture

The top one is the 'bodkin' made in their millions as the standard anti-armour/general purpose round. Looks effective doesn't it and I doubt they would have been made in such numbers if they hadn't worked. One below is the issue 'anti-horse ' arrowhead designed to penetrate and stay in.
Nothing like a pain maddened horse thrashing around in the enemy ranks to cause some discomfort to them. Horrible business but war generally is.

Falkonfive

Hi falkonfive.

I doubt the "herces" ("wedges") were anywhere deeper than c. 16 ranks. For, as you note, the rear rankers in any deeper formations would have been out of range: more to the point, the mechanical operation of the clout shooting would make it less possible the deeper you go: the rear rankers would be out of touch with the front, with too much time lag to copy what the front ranks are doing, and too many lost rounds on open ground: an approaching French line of c. 8 to 12 ranks would hardly be a deep enough target to warrant a "herce" 30 or 40 ranks deep!

So three enormous "wedges" is out of the question, imho. Besides, nowhere in the sources close to the time (at least one later source implies archers across the front of the English men-at-arms) do they imply or state a "center" of archers: Henry's "battle" is the center, and the position of the archers is on the ends or wings. That makes a division of the archers into three bodies impossible with three bodies of men-at-arms.

As you say, we'll never know anything for sure. But this exercise is fun, to try and come up with the BEST picture that takes everything into account, in the order of most evident reliability and provenance.

Greetings again Lord L,

You make some good points. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out exactly how everyone was deployed at the start. The only thing makes me shy of the two 'wedge' theory is assuming the archers were divided up fairly equally ( and theres no reason to suppose they weren't ) it leaves 2000 archers a flank to fit in. Now the only thing I'm certain about is the ground itself which I know fairly well. 2000 men is the size of a couple of modern day battalions and takes up space. Now your figure of 16 ranks seems reasonable and if so and my math is right that gives us a frontage of 125 ( maybe nearer 150 yards ) per body of archers with a depth of maybe 40 yds. I know how much space ya need for a longbow at full draw, I've allowed 6' between ranks ). So theres 300 yds taken up leaving 5-600 for Henry and the foot boys. At a yard a man that gives us two ranks. Kinda lean but possible I suppose. And thats assuming the wedges were in fact rectangular when everyone speaks of the 'herce' formation which was triangular. But lets go with the blocks rather than wedges. So the 'blocks' are gonna shoot from 0' to 45' to cover the whole French advance across the field. The outermost archers are gonna make 250 yds, lets be generous. So draw a sketch and we see that the very few archers in the corners of the blocks are gonna drop their shafts in the centre of the field and that would make an inviting passage for the French. I still go for some firepower in the centre but was it a 'wedge/block' or did Henry just line some up behind ( or in front ) of the dismounted battle? If in front then it wouldn't be too hard to retire behind the men at arms when the French got close. There again for the sake of a few yards why not put them behind where arrow resupply would have been easier using the track? Who knows?? Front seems better if they are aimed shots, back if its ' clout shooting'. Ya pays your money and you take your choice :. Re the synchronised volleys idea I think probably not. Why the need for all the arrows arriving in intermittent showers? Getting 8 arrows in the air is enough of a job without holding a heavy bow back at full draw waiting for someone to shout loose. I reckon 'independent fire' was equally effective.

Whatever, theres only one way to settle it. We need 5000 archers and 2000 men at arms to take the cheap day return from Dover :). Wonder if theres 25000 plus French who would like to take part in an experiment??

F5

The Gesta, nearest and most detailed source to the events, says "wedges" of archers between the battles of men-at-arms. Attempts to dismiss this based on the eyewitness being "with the baggage" are pointless; because he clearly states that the baggage was moved up behind Henry's line, and that only the "tail" of it got pillaged, i.e. he wasn't even an eyewitness to that, but was focused toward the battle front the entire time: he was also "on horseback', which means he could SEE what was going on. He wrote two years later. Even Waurin, LeFèvre and Monstrelet, state that Thomas Erpingham (Henry's "general" in charge of ordering his army), "…[put] the archers in the front and then the men-at-arms. He made two wings of men-at-arms and archers…" (Yet we have historians making this into a single body of men-at-arms in the center with ALL the archers on the wings?") Without the Gesta, we would be compelled to interpret this to mean, a center and two wings of men-at-arms, with all the archers out in front as a forward line. Again, taken alone, Monstrelet, Waurin and LeFèvre's account says nothing whatsover of the French men-at-arms targetting the English men-at-arms: but rather, they get into difficulties from the routing cavalry crashing into the vanguard, at which point the ARCHERS attack them first, and then, "After the English archers the king of England followed up by marching in with all his men-at-arms in great strength." This is thoroughly consistent with itself, but, it denies the Gesta entirely: it reads like an entirely different field. Taken together, the Gesta includes "wedges" of archers between the bodies of men-at-arms, gives us (also) three "battles", and archers on the wings of the army: and a clear picture of the French vanguard attacking the English men-at-arms and avoiding contact with the archers. The Gesta is invaluable, for without it we would have an entirely erroneous picture of what happened: between themselves, Monstrelet, Waurin and LeFèvre cannot supply us with half so clear an account as the cleric behind Henry's battle line on his horse does.

Three battles of men-at-arms in four ranks (a clearly stated detail) is 250 yards total width, if there are 1,000 men-at-arms (I go with the most clearly stated number, by Curry, et al., which is based on research of the muster/indenture rolls and the known casualties and garrison left at Harfleur). That makes each "battle" of men-at-arms less than 100 yards across its front.

We are told in later sources that the archers were "forward", that is, angled out in front of the line of men-at-arms in the center of each "battle". Anne Curry gives very good reasons for assuming c. 8,000 archers, based on the totals in the indenture rolls, the garrison left at Harfleur, the known troops sent home after the siege, etc. So we have a range of 4,000 to 8,000 longbowmen.

Simple division of 4,000 archers into four ranks takes no less than 1,000 yards of front, requiring a considerable angling forward of each archer wing if the entire English army is to squeeze into 1,000 yards of open ground: less angling if we increase ranks deep: more angling if we decrease frontage to 800 yards or less.

With 1,000 men-at-arms and 4,000 archers, divided into three fairly equal "battles", on a 1,000 yard frontage, each of the six archer wings (of whatever depth) would extend out and forward 125 yards. When drawn up alongside each other, each archer wing would form a "wedge" where their ends meet. The Gesta doesn't say that the "wedge(s)" were solid to the base. (Oman's map shows what I have described and remains one of the most convincing, though why he shows the extreme right wing of archers forming a "wedge" makes no sense: the tree-facing side would have less visibility of the approaching French.)

It can be readily seen, that, only by following the Gesta account does the effective range of the longbow extend to all of the archers: the furthest archers from any of their men-at-arms is still only c. 125 yards out and forward, and considerably closer than 125 yards to the approaching French, once they are even with the archer wings: and this last shooting would be at pointblank range for any archers closer to their own men-at-arms, while all the shooting would then be enfilading in from the flanks.

Those who advocate a single body of English men-at-arms are not understanding the math: they would have the wings of archers extending out 375 yards away from their own men-at-arms: in other words, denying any shooting at all to those outside of 200 yards, and only less than half of the total archers within 125 yards. Such a hypothesis denies the best eyewitness we have, and ignores or does not understand the practical mechanics of longbow shooting and the ranges involved. (I am repeating myself, I know, but just want this point to be very clearly understood: it isn't an opinion, it is what the numbers tell us.)

I have pretty much read every word in this thread (yes it has take hours). I still have a few questions to ask. Firstly, a while bag someone said thatthe owning family had refused scientific tests. I am assuming this is an archaeological evaluation of the site. Further to this I was wondering if any of the other battlefields have gone to excavation. (Visby and Towton seem to be the only sources I can reliably get hold of!)

Secondly, it was mentioned that the weight of the armour was what meant that the french could not fight. This seems a little odd to me. What is described is the inability to lift weapons. Thi swoudl be more through fatigue than actual physical weight. Logic says they woudln't wear armour that woudl not allow them to lift their weapons. Also to add personal experience into this walking across similar terrain weighed down by lots of equipment and then swinging a sword around woudl be acheivable. I dont consider myself hugely fit but I was able to work 7 hours (albeit with a couple of breaks) swinging a mattock and shovel after trudging around a rain soaked quagmire. Now if I can do that I think an adrenaline fuelled Noble woudl be able to acheive similar results. As a single factor I don't see a great effect on the capabilities of the men involved.

Tirdly as to the availability and effectiveness of the armour there seems to be a lot of supposition. Tests (with a few problems to my eye but fairly satisfactory) have proven that the longbow's capabilities against the iron armour used by the majority, at least in the earlier stages, were not actually as great as first thought. The armour at 3mm was inpenetrable, at 2mm there was a maximum of 1cm penetration and only armour of 1mm was easily breached. now if this is allied with a combination of some sort of jack or the addition of leather (extremely common amongst the poorer soldiers) then it is only at 1mm thickness that we have good penetration. This meant that only the areas of the arms and lower legs would be consistently wounded. It seems to me then that there were a lot more wounds than fatal shots and a clearing up of the enemy with no mercy seems more plausible as the main cause of death.

Something else I havn't seen discussed is the translation of the sources. The original writings were not in english and from what I remember the herce term is hotly debated. As for supposed eye witness accounts I lay very little faith in them. Also the descriptions of many things in supposed eye witness accounts owe much to convention aswell. Much as I believe this sources are inhernetly useful I just prefer my physical evidence mucj easier to know what yur about when you lift it out of a hole in the ground!
Another book which I might point out here is the work by Adrian Bell on the indentures. (I know he has worked with Anne Curry in the same area).

Just a few thoughts

A