"Revisionist history of the Battle of Agincourt" Topic

I've found this article in The New York Times:

link

Pretty interesting.

Saw that this morning. Intresting indeed, but a bit of a stretch (IMO) comparing HYW France to modern Iraq. That's the NY Times for you, though.

Hi

We have had whole threads on this with dueling sources.

R

I am just waiting for the revision that actually the English outnumbered the French and that they lost…

I'm sure John Mosier has such a book in the works as we speak. 'The Agincourt Myth'.

The article does not really seem to make a comparison between HYW France and Iraq. The point had to do with Henry apparently cultivating support among locals as well as growing opposition to him from previously warring factions within France:

For one thing, by the time Henry landed near the mouth of the Seine on Aug. 14, 1415, and began a rather uninspiring siege of a town called Harfleur, France was on the verge of a civil war, with factions called the Burgundians and the Armagnacs at loggerheads. Henry would eventually forge an alliance with the Burgundians, who in today's terms would become his "local security forces" in Normandy, and he cultivated the support of local merchants and clerics, all practices that would have been heartily endorsed by the counterinsurgency manual.

"I'm not one who sees history repeating itself, but I think a lot of attitudes do," said Kelly DeVries, a professor of history at Loyola College in Maryland who has written extensively on medieval warfare. … fighters from across the region began filtering toward the Armagnac camp as soon as Henry became allied with their enemies. "Very much like Al Qaeda in Iraq, there were very diverse forces coming from very, very different places to fight," Mr. DeVries said.

The most interesting part top me is Gen. David H. Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as the head of the United States Central Command, drew on dozens of academic historians and other experts to create the manual.

quote from link:

Burgundians, who in today's terms would become his "local security forces" in Normandy,

Not according to my reading- It was English and local forces to my understanding.

Stupid analogies, but the questioning of the traditionalist accounts of Agincourt is a very Delbruckian thing to do and I support it.

Start here: TMP link and on page 5 c. halfway down are links to the other Agincourt threads going back years….

If he wanted an analogy, perhaps Vietnam would have been better, as it showed how military power could not win the war alone…

If they want an "even fight" approach the standard accounts show that the English used terrain (and luck) to convert an unequal fight into an equal or perhaps more than equal one

I'm not a HYW savvy, so I can't say if the research is accurate or not. However, Mrs Curry's team has reunited a lot of archival evidence, and also they had a point when say that the French probably hadn't the time or the resources to muster such a big army.

That shouldn't diminish the accomplishment of Henry V though. He managed to hold together his army in a really tight spot. Most medieval armies would have melted away if ravaged by dysentery and a abysmal supply situation. But Henry V's didn't. That says a lot of his charisma and prestige between his men.

Also, he was able to outmaneuver the French and entincing them to attack into the worst possible terrain in the area, maximizing the strengths of his own army and diminishing those of the French. That's the mark of a great tactician.

Even if we allow that the French didn't outnumber the English for as much as the literary sources said, Agincourt left the French Crown without resources to stop Henry V, and was forced to accept all his demands. We know what happened next (Henry died before he had time to consolidate the fruits of his battlefield exploits), but that is hindsight. In the time, Agincourt looked like the definitive victory of the English Crown over the French. And if Henry would have live it's not unthinkable that he would have been able to substitute for good the Capet dinasty for the Plantagenet.

A.

Hi

And what is the story? Revision.

in the time, the conventional wisdom was that the professional heavy cav/knight was overwhelming in a fight with the peasant. THUS, the free or obligated minor classes needed him to protect them and thus work 40 days, yadda yadda.

Agincourt isn't just a paradigm about numbers, but a story about battles with nobles falling to yeoman.

Rocky

"Agincourt isn't just a paradigm about numbers, but a story about battles with nobles falling to yeoman."

And?

A yeoman trained to fight.

But yeah I think that big impact was ideational. As a friend of mine said

"The most important thing, I think, that Delbruck pointed out was that even the French sources were hostile to the royal family and thus likely to be inaccurate. His estimate of 9,000 for the English force is consistent with current research. As for the French force, I agree with his 8,000, including 6,000 knights. By my demographic calculations, France probably could only support 20,000 fully armored knights, and assembling even a fraction of them in one place was a considerable task. I don't think they even had 6,000 at Bouvines, perhaps the biggest battle in Western medieval Europe. So 6,000 in a divided, ravaged country would be pretty significant.

The important thing to consider was that in the contemporary public mind one mounted knight probably equaled 10 common foot soldiers and 2 dismounted knights. Thus the shock when 3,000 French knights were routed by 11,000 Flemish infantry at Courtrai. So, even though the English slightly outnumbered the French quantitatively, qualitatively and by the "medieval military math" they were still grossly outnumbered."

I don't believe in a French army smaller than the English. Every main English and French source of the time says otherwise. To do calculations of the "disunited realm" and come up with figures that make the original eyewitnesses out to be either crap at seeing and writing what was there, or liars, is creating Agincourt into a non subject: if you can't trust your eyewitnesses you have nothing to study!

The BEST eyewitnesses agree generally on the appearance of the French army compared to the English: Hal V's army was in a single thin line of men-at-arms interspersed with bowmen also in a single line (there may have been a skirmish "detail" in front of the men-at-arms, but these would have joined the "blocks" of archers between the battles of men-at-arms before the French vanguard made contact). The French army, comparatively, was DEEP and in column of battles. Half of the French army weren't even men-at-arms: crossbowmen and "gros varlets"….

Yes but that may mean a 2 or 3 to 1 rather then 5 to 1 or 6 to 1 ratio.

Oman's comparative strengths is the one I accepted, until Curry's upgraded research of the original sources convinced me that a French army of c. 12,000 is more likely. The English appear to have been out-numbered c. 1.5 to 1 in total effectives of all kinds. 6K to 8K of the French were men-at-arms….

"However, it will be years before other historians will have been able to go over her data and decide whether her theory is correct. Some early reviewers of the book have been enthusiastic, but it remains to be seen whether her thesis will stand up to scrutiny after it has been subjected to the critique of a wider scholarly audience.

A later book by Juliet Barker, Agincourt: The King, the Campaign, the Battle, claims 6,000 English and Welsh fought against 36,000 French, with the odds being six to one, from a French heraldic source. The same test of wider scholarly scrutiny is also yet to be applied."
link

Juliet Barker seems a more popularist historian than Curry. I think she generally sits comfortably with convention.

Cheers,

Darrell.

Re. The French. No figures remain for the 'unregistered' French attending. So the strength of the French can never be finally determined. Monstrelet was a contemporary and gives their total as 6 times the English i.e. lots more. De Waurihn is very specific about the French and also says there wer vastly more than the English. French sources.
Re. English. Curry herself reckons on c.9,000 English at the battle.
Juliet Barker is not a 'popularist' but she is a writer. Her history of Agincourt is based around the human experience of the battle and the personalities involved. She says she found nothing in her studies for the book to contravert the English being heavily outnumbered despite reviewing Curry's work before she went to press. The problem with Curry's approach is that it is objectively correct 'on paper' but the connection with real strengths after Harfleur is harder to establish.

In English literature the bowmen are not credited with the victory until Victorian times. The nobles won the battle. The Band of brothers are noblemen and esquires, not the archers.

A nice 'revisionist' touch is that two female authors are discussed here in the usually male domain of medieval military history. However maybe female traits are revealed in that that both consistently say 'fire' for shooting bows throughout their work and while Barker's book escapes including any maps at all Curry has lousy ones.

The New York Times article has, however nothing 'revisionist' in it. Reassessment, maybe. The French are superior in numbers, the English win. It is just something to put out near the anniversary that allows a false link with U.S. problems in their foreign adventures. Has Obama claimed the Afghan throne recently ?

However maybe female traits are revealed in that that both consistently say 'fire' for shooting bows throughout their work and while Barker's book escapes including any maps at all Curry has lousy ones.

Not quite sure I follow. What do you mean by: "However maybe female traits are revealed in that that both consistently say 'fire' for shooting bows throughout their work…" ?

He means women get the geeky details and terms wrong….

Juliet Barker is not a 'popularist' but she is a writer. Her history of Agincourt is based around the human experience of the battle and the personalities involved. She says she found nothing in her studies for the book to contravert the English being heavily outnumbered despite reviewing Curry's work before she went to press.

Her account of the battle does follow many popular assumptions, this is what I mean by popularist ie. the French having overwhelming numbers, the English marching forward to within bowshot (a manoeuvre that would have been almost impossible for Henry's army to keep order for such a long distance on saturated muddy ground. That's leaving aside the fact that the French would have seen this move as the ideal time to attack with the English caught out in the open and without the benefit of their stakes!!. In other words very easy meat! In all, she seems to challenge very little of what has developed over the years into the modern 'Agincourt myth'.

In English literature the bowmen are not credited with the victory until Victorian times. The nobles won the battle. The Band of brothers are noblemen and esquires, not the archers.

I beg to differ…..

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition"

Also, from The Bowmans Glory, 1592:

Agincourt, Agincourt,
Know ye not Agincourt?
Never to be Forgot
Or known to no men?
Where English cloth yard arrows
Killed the French like tamed sparrows,
Slain by our bowmen.

For an excellent 'revisionist' history of the battle more authentically human than Barkers book try Agincourt 1415, Michael K. Jones.

Cheers,

Darrell.

…the English marching forward to within bowshot (a manoeuvre that would have been almost impossible for Henry's army to keep order for such a long distance on saturated muddy ground. That's leaving aside the fact that the French would have seen this move as the ideal time to attack with the English caught out in the open and without the benefit of their stakes!!. In other words very easy meat! In all, she seems to challenge very little of what has developed over the years into the modern 'Agincourt myth'.

What writer says that the English didn't form up TWICE, and advance to within bowshot? Certainly not Anne Curry! That is one of the key stated factors in the battle by eye witnesses. I haven't heard anyone, till now, challenge that as a myth….

What writer says that the English didn't form up TWICE, and advance to within bowshot? Certainly not Anne Curry! That is one of the key stated factors in the battle by eye witnesses. I haven't heard anyone, till now, challenge that as a myth….

Well, one Dr Michael K. Jones for starters. I recommend his book; Agincourt 1415, Michael K. Jones. He has also published an article on Verneuil. I think it's available through Saga.

He postulates that the archers may have advanced a short distance in order to provoke a response from the French with hunting cries etc before falling back to the relative safety of the stakes. His theory also lends more credence to archers placed in the woods, adding to the provocation.

Anyway, if you haven't read his book, please do. It's an interesting read.

Cheers,

Darrell.

Strange. I keep "hearing" all of the original sources describing how the English army waited, then advanced to the second position in order to bring on the battle. How a scholar can ignore-refute actual eye witnesses, a comparatively large number of them, all in agreement, is a mystery to me.

And archers in the woods: he and Rich Knapton must have been collaborating! :) Again, the eye witnesses are very clear on this: the English army filled the open ground BETWEEN the flanking woods. If there were any archers in the woods, they comprised a single ambushing body of some scores, but not enough to keep even French cavalry from escaping around the end of the archer line, between them and the woods. Large bodies of archers in the woods, i.e. the English army extended to be IN the woods as well as outside, would have made such a described event as the French cavalry escape between the archers and the woods impossible…. (crap, here I go again)

Michael K. Jones' book: 192 pages, over $21 USD (plus shipping).

Juliet Barker's book: 464 pages, a year newer, and under $5 USD (plus shipping).

Hmm! Which one should I buy?…

Michael K. Jones' book: 192 pages, over $21 USD USD (plus shipping).

Juliet Barker's book: 464 pages, a year newer, and under $5 USD USD (plus shipping).

Hmm! Which one should I buy?…

I fail to see what this has to do with anything we have discussed Doug.

Large bodies of archers in the woods, i.e. the English army extended to be IN the woods as well as outside, would have made such a described event as the French cavalry escape between the archers and the woods impossible…. (crap, here I go again)

I am being misquoted here. I have not mentioned large bodies of archers in the wood.

Cheers,

Darrell.

His theory also lends more credence to archers placed in the woods, adding to the provocation.

That takes large bodies. A few archers would not goad a battle of over 5,000 men-at-arms. I didn't quote you, I addressed what you implied.

The only body of archers mentioned is in the Burgundian eye witnesses: it was set to shoot into the flank of the ADVANCING French, not goad them to attack: i.e. it was supposed to help distract and disrupt their attack (the existence of such a body of archers forward and on the flank is disputed, even in the original source itself)….

Agincourt was about mud and incompetence – not the superiority of the longbow.

Don't understand why this revisionism is adding anything to best practice on counter-insurgency, didn't the British crack that in Malaya in the '50s?

Hi

Number 6, make a point. The implication is that if it wasn't the longbow, then with the british MAA being outnumberd by the French MAA by 10 to one, somehow the mud only bothered the french.

Rocky

Thought the revisionist position was it wasn't a longbow victory. They only had enough arrows for the first wave & after that they were killing french knights wading through the mud on foot, hand to hand?

The not-so-outnumbered issue is unconvincing because the victory stunned Christendom & was seen as a 'miracle' beyond any English propaganda. Suggests the English had got back to wall

That takes large bodies. A few archers would not goad a battle of over 5,000 men-at-arms.

I am of course referring to the mounted men-at-arms and not the foot!

Strange you would think I was referring to the foot…..

Cheers,

Darrell.

Hi

So, now unarmored yeoman aren't bothered and outfight hand to hand, trained knights?

First, the early sources are clear that there were wagons of reloads. There are descriptions of handing up sheeves of arrows.

Second. the "wasn't a longbow" revision is modern and mostly promoted by armor geeks and often disparages longbow as a first premise. And, honestly, they are usually opposed by the "longbow porn boys".. But neither side is period.

If it wasn't longbow, then the subsequent british armies would have switched to yeoman with big hammers instead of recruiting longbow and paying them a premium for BEING long bow for a long time after.

Rocky

I think that at some point the archers would have had to enter melee to take the pressure off the hoplessly outnumbered English men-at-arms.

I also have my doubts about all the archers being unarmoured. Some were relatively wealthy and would have been able to afford decent kit.

So, a combination of both,

Cheers,

Darrell.

Darrell, I assumed you meant the foot, yes. But that doesn't change anything: because how does archers goading the mounted French wings from the trees get them to attack the English in the open?.

You're right about the yeomen being armed, and some even armored. But a chain shirt still isn't very even odds against full plate and a lifetime of training in arms: that was the expectation.

English archers had come to grips with French dismounted men-at-arms before and done just fine. All of this has been gone over thoroughly in the earlier threads. You might find them interesting ( TMP link , post 11 October 2:11 PM, halfway down)….

English archers had come to grips with French dismounted men-at-arms before and done just fine. All of this has been gone over thoroughly in the earlier threads. You might find them interesting ( TMP link , post 11 October 2:11 PM, halfway down)….

I'll check it out, thanks….. :0)

Cheers,

Darrell.

Interesting article, largely based on Anne Curry's execellent new history. Its hardly a revisionist fantasy however, and she fully acknowledges the yeoman's importance.

She also provided a companion volume of source material which should serve to repudicate most of the "English mud"
and "longbow's weren't important revisionist" theories.

While I enjoyed Ms. Barker's work, I found Curry's much more convinicing. A more respectable rebuttal comes from Clifford Rogers whoose scholarship compares to Curry's.

TomT

I have Curry's source book as well: "the mud" shows up in both French and English sources as a major factor and so do the bowmen. When the primary sources from both sides agree, it seems silly to me for modern academics to argue that they (the eye witnesses to the battle) didn't know what they were seeing or talking about….

agincourt was actually fought in central germany in the year 1912AD between the spanish and the russians over water rights to the moon, historians tell us lately. interesting that we had it so wrong for so long, with english and french incorrectly in the mix.

apparently hank five was home the whole time chasing a french girl around the castle, a bit of slap and tickle if you will. he and a few mates, who he referred to as "we few, we depraved few."