Part III
Chapter 12
A brief note in records of the period indicates that Edward III was highly encouraged by such successes as Morlaix and that he was anticipating more battles in France. In 1342 he ordered that every sheriff must provide 500 white bow-staves and 500 bundles of arrows for the coming battles. The next year the order was repeated with the additional demand that the Sheriff of Gloucester was not only required to provide 500 white bowstaves but also the same number of painted staves. In the summer of 1346 Edward had marched his army from the Cherbourg Peninsula almost to Paris, crossing the Seine at Poissy and marching towards Amiens to make contact with his Flemish allies. But he found King Philip with a large army in the Amiens area, and they frustrated all Edward’s attempts to take his army across the river Somme. Finally, by offering large rewards to prisoners, one Gobin Agache was persuaded to tell him of a practical ford at Blanchetaque (The White Spot). Here a man could cross the river, at low tide, with the water only up to his knees in spite of the ford being nearly 2,000 yards long.
It was essential that the English army should gain the far bank; their situation had suddenly become critical – boots were worn out, bread was scarce and the men were suffering from eating the unripe wayside fruit. Their horses were getting fewer in number and many knights were reduced to riding clumsy captured farm animals. Edward had no idea of the progress of his Flemish allies and he was out of touch with the fleet. The French army was vastly superior to the English force numerically, and Edward knew that he could easily lose the entire war in a single battle of a few hours’ duration.
They reached the ford at dawn, when the tide was only just starting to ebb; they had four long and anxious hours to wait before the ford became crossable. They had marched in single column, Warwick leading the advance-guard with a force of archers, then men-at-arms, followed by baggage and, rearmost, the King’s division. The column closed up until the entire army was concentrated on the south bank, immediately opposite the ford. It is said to have been ten o’clock before the first man – Hugh Despenser – led the vanguard of archers into the glistening water to begin what appeared to be an uneventful progress over the one-and-a-half-mile causeway. When they came within a hundred yards of the shore they were greeted with an unexpected shower of crossbow bolts – Philip had posted a force of about 3,500 men-at-arms and infantry, with a force of Genoese crossbowmen, to hold the ford.
Taken by surprise and without cover or protection, the English were massed in an easy target for the Genoese crossbows; they took a number of casualties as they tried to deploy and return the fire. The water was still waist-deep, making it difficult to wield the longbows efficiently, besides wetting the bowstrings. Both archers and cavalry stumbled and fell into the churned-up water as they were hit; some slipped off the causeway into the deeper river on either side. This causeway was wide enough for some eleven men to stand abreast, so the archers packed in whilst the remainder fired over the heads of the front rank. Quickly, the longbow assumed its habitual ascendancy over the crossbow and the Genoese fire began to slacken. Seeing this, Warwick gave the signal for the men-at-arms to advance; the horsemen plunged and splashed through and past the archers, who edged to the sides of the causeway to let them through. The English horse were met by some of the French cavalry who had plunged from the bank to dispute the passage and a confused, splashing conflict of short duration took place in the shallow water, ending with the French retiring in confusion to the bank. The English men-at-arms followed close behind them, the archers covering their advance with a steady barrage of hissing arrows. The French quickly showed that they wanted none of this and took flight, leaving behind them almost 2,000 casualties.
At the other end of the causeway, the last of the English men and wagons were entering the now rapidly deepening water. Suddenly the French advance-guard, under the King of Bohemia, came dashing up and there was a short, sharp engagement between them and the English rearguard. There were a few casualties and some wagons were captured, but the bulk of them, bearing their precious cargo of arrows, escaped and were trundling their way, axle-deep, across the river. The French made no attempt to pursue, allowing the English to escape – Edward had succeeded in crossing the river Somme and could now seek his Flemish allies and prepare a position in which to receive the French attack.
The English army marched to the edge of a forest about nine miles north-east of Blanchetaque and, on the day following the crossing, were halted on the banks of the little river Maye, beyond which lay a village called Crécy-en-Ponthieu. In this area Edward found a suitable position to offer battle: he chose a windmill-crowned ridge immediately to the north-east of the village, from which it extended for about 2,000 yards to the hamlet of Wadicourt. In front of the position was a depression, later to be called the Vallée aux Clercs (Valley of the Clerks), ranging from about one hundred feet in depth on the right to nothing on the left. The slope in front of the right flank of the position was about one in twelve and almost imperceptible on the left; the village and the river Maye protected the right flank against cavalry attack, but the left (and much weaker flank) had only the small hamlet of Wadicourt as protection, with open country beyond. A few hundred yards behind the centre of the ridge.was a small wood, the Bois de Crécy-Grange.
Numerically, the English army is thought to have been between 12,000 and 13,000 strong, being positioned in three distinct divisions. That of the Black Prince, consisting of 800 dismounted men-at-arms flanked on either side by a total of 2,000 archers and about 1,000 Welsh spearmen, was placed well down the slope within 300 yards of the valley bottom. On the Prince’s left and somewhat drawn back so that they were slightly higher up the slope, lay the rearguard under the experienced Earl of Northampton; it was smaller than the first division, consisting of about 500 men-at-arms and 1,200 archers formed up in the same manner. The right of this division rested on the Prince’s left and its left flank was protected by Wadi-court. The third division, that of the King, consisted of 700 men-at-arms, 2,000 archers and perhaps 1,000 Welsh spearmen, and were formed on the plateau in front of the wood of Crécy-Grange, behind the battle of the Prince of Wales. The baggage was parked in a wagon-leaguer backing on to the wood; its interior being occupied by the horses and garrisoned by the pages. Edward intended to fight with his men-at-arms dismounted, as had been done by Northampton at Morlaix a few years previously. The Black Prince had as chief officers the Earls of Warwick and Oxford, and he was under the personal protection of Godfrey Harcourt.
The men-at-arms were deployed into line by the marshals and then a solid wedge of archers formed up on the flanks of each of the divisions. Known as ‘herces’3 these wedges were formed by the body of archers inching forward diagonally, pivoting on the flank of their own men-at-arms; where the two contiguous lines of archers met, an apex was formed. In this way a bastion-like formation was created in the intervals between the divisions; obvious advantages being that the front of the men-at-arms and the flanks of the army could be enfiladed by arrow fire. The archers dug small holes in front of their position and planted a plentiful supply of arrows in the ground; their usual supply of twenty-four or forty-eight arrows being supplemented from the wagons. When they were exhausted, the archer had three choices:
1. He could await the arrival of a fresh supply from the wagons.
2. He could dash forward during a lull and pick up arrows fired at the enemy that had missed their mark and were lying on the ground. This was done at Poitiers.
3. He could abandon his bow and join in the mêlée with his sword, as he did at Agincourt. Being unencumbered with armour, the archers were more nimble and most effective in hand-to-hand fighting. They were probably hefty, muscular men, as only a strong man could effectively wield a longbow.
The men-at-arms were armour-clad; wearing a visored bascinet, the crested helmet was used only in the lists. The casing of the body in jointed armour was now nearly complete, and the adoption of breast and back plates enabled the knights to dispense with the ancient hauberk of rings. The use of plate-armour was a decided improvement from a protection point of view; it was also possibly lighter than chain mail with its accompanying garments. The magnificent jupon, emblazoned with the wearer’s arms, and the splendid knightly girdle were both testimonies of the warlike age. Greaves, or jambs (steel boots) and sollerets to cover the feet had been introduced; the backs of the gauntlets were furnished with overlapping plates, armed with knobs or spikes of iron.
When every man in the army was in his allotted position, the King rode slowly down the line on a white palfrey; he studied the dispositions with an experienced eye and talked to the men, giving them words of cheer and encouragement. It was midday when he came to the end of the line, and there was still no sign of the French. Edward gave orders for the men to fall out and eat, positions to be instantly resumed at the sound of the trumpet. The men removed their helms, the archers laid their bows carefully alongside their arrows, so that they marked their places. When the food was consumed, the men lay down and rested or stood in groups talking, eyes constantly straying in the direction from which the enemy was expected to come. Four o’clock came; still without any warning cry from the lookout at the top of the windmill. The sky suddenly darkened and a brief but fierce rainstorm fell upon them; the archers rushed to protect their precious bowstrings, each man quickly unstringing his bow and coiling up the string inside his hat. The storm passed over and the bows were re-strung; the clear air, fresh with the scent of the rain, hummed with the mumbling hubbub of thousands of deep male voices.
Above the noise came a sudden sharp cry from the windmill, which had been earlier picked as a post of command by Edward because of the clear view it gave of the whole position. The King rushed to verify that it did indeed betoken the approach of the enemy; satisfied, he gave the signal and the trumpets sounded. The groups broke up and dispersed; discarded armour and helms were hastily donned; everyone stood to their allotted post in grim and confident silence; they knew that everything was ready, that nothing had been overlooked. The archers had checked their distances and were conscious that their shafts could reach the bottom of the valley, but they were ordered to hold their fire until the enemy were within effective range. Then, with every man motionless and all eyes fixed forward, the van of the French army hove in sight, descending the gentle slope into the valley of the Maye. Their armour gleamed, and lance pennons fluttered; at first they seemed a formidable host but, as they moved nearer and with every step they took clearly seen from the English position, they lost much of their threat in the hour it took them to get within striking distance.
The French army had approached the battlefield from Marcheville, so that they had to turn sharply left to face the English position. The sudden change in the direction of march brought an inevitable disorder and the usually ragged march discipline of the French sadly accentuated the situation. It was a mixed army, formed of the King’s regular troops; foreign notabilities with their contingents; German mercenaries and the Genoese crossbowmen, who had already tasted the power of English arrows. All were massed together with a disorderly, straggling crowd of provincial levies. Contingents jostled each other, units bumped and became inextricably mixed; the army was almost out of hand even before a shot had been fired. Testimony to this confusion are the varying reports on the size and disposition of the French army; its numbers are reported to have been as many as 145,000 or 100,000, its divisions from three to twelve. It seems from the more sober reports and chronicles that they were about three times as strong as the English army – consisting of about 40,000 men formed in three divisions. The first division consisted of about 6,000 Genoese crossbowmen under Antonio Doria and Carlo Grimaldi; the second was led by the Count d’Alençon, brother to the King, with three crowned heads serving under his banner – John of Luxemburg, the blind King of Bohemia; the King of the Romans, his son, and the King of Majorca, The third division was under Codemar de Faye.
Battle of Crécy 26th August 1346
King Philip was undecided as to his best course of action. He had been taken by surprise at the sudden sight of the English drawn up in battle array. His troops were wearied by the march, hungry and in considerable disorder; it seemed sensible to wait until the morning before attacking. He gave the order to halt. When the order reached the vanguard, the impulsive French knights at the head of the column believed that they were to be deprived of the honour of opening the battle, as they could see that some of the troops in the rear were still advancing. So they pushed forward impatiently, feeling confident that their superior numerical strength would triumph. Seeing them move forward, the main body persisted in following them until the whole army arrived so close to the English position that a battle became unavoidable. In pushing forward, the French knights forcibly propelled before them the Genoese mercenaries who formed the advance-guard. The heavily accoutred Italians, weary after a march of six leagues bearing their weighty weapons, drenched and draggled, conscious that they were virtually disarmed because of the wetness of their bowstrings, shuffled wearily into their stations along the French front. Seeing this hesitation and now being committed to fight, the King cried:
‘Make the Genoese go in front and begin the battle, in the name of God and St. Denis!’
The mercenaries muttered and complained to their constables:
‘We be not well ordered to fight this day; we be not in the case to do any great deed of arms, and have more need of rest.’
The constables, in their turn, complained that their men were being unfairly treated. The Count d’Alençon was scornful:
‘Truly, a man is well at ease to be charged with these kind of rascals, who are faint and fail us now when most at need!’
Stung by his words, the Genoese mercenaries attempted to deploy and march against the English position looming ahead of them. It was a difficult procedure for such a large body of already disordered men, now being rudely hustled in their rear by the arrogant French knights. In spite of the efforts of these experienced professional soldiers, their line became hopelessly ragged and out of dressing, so that they had to be halted to reform three times in less than a mile of shambling progress. In the rear of the English position, the sun emerged brilliantly, to shine full in the eyes of the enemy and to present conditions said to be ideal for the archers, now ominously testing their bows.
Slowly the Genoese continued their advance; their progress across the valley being marked with whoops, shouts and arm-waving as though to bolster up their flagging spirits. They halted, gave three ordered loud cries and then commenced to ascend the gentle slope leading up to the English position. The bolts they halted to discharge occasionally all fell short, the recent rain having sadly relaxed the strings of their clumsy weapons; their fingers fumbled as they went through the cumbrous process of winding up their arbalesta, their eyes fixed on the unmoving line to their front. When they came to within 150 yards of the English archers their forward movement wavered in the face of their silent, immobile foe; they set up more shouts and whoops in the hope of shaking that calm.
Ahead of the Genoese a sharp word of command rang out; in response the English archers, as one man, stepped forward a pace to draw their bowstrings to their ears. Suddenly the bright sunlight was shut off by black swarms of arrows, the air full of their hissing. The clothyard shafts quivered in the faces and bodies of the Italian mercenaries, the discharge striking their closely knit lines in devastating fashion. They reeled and staggered, falling into even greater disorder as they recoiled from the continuous shower of wailing arrows.
Their discomfort was increased by a series of belches of flame, with roaring noises like thunderclaps, followed by the hissing progress of heavy balls of iron and stone which tore through the ranks of the crossbowmen to prostrate men and stampede horses in the ranks behind them. It was Edward’s ‘secret weapon’ – crude iron tubes that had been laboriously borne across France in the bottom of the ammunition wagons to take their place as the first cannon to be fired in open warfare. Surprising as their appearance must have been to the French, these crude and noisy innovations to the art of war do not seem to have had as much physical or morale effect upon the French as might have been expected. The chroniclers all continue to report this battle in the terms of devastating results of English archery rather than those caused by rough stone and iron balls, each of which weighed perhaps 1½ to 2 lb. and were sent on their way with such a spectacular gush of flame and smoke.
The unfortunate, belaboured Genoese now had, crowding forward on their heels, the elite of the nobility of France, all spoiling for a fight and resentful that the foreign mercenaries had done them out of the honour of opening the battle. Like their leader, Count d’Alençon, they were ready to suspect the crossbowmen of treachery; had the Italians not baulked at going forward in the first place? The hot-headed d’Alençon provided the spark, crying loudly:
‘Slay me those rascals! They do but hinder and trouble us without reason!’
Clapping spurs into his horse’s flanks, he drove his charger into the midst of the Genoese, closely followed by his men-at-arms, shouting and cursing as they rode and trampled underfoot the mercenaries. Beset from both sides and unable to get close enough to the English to return their fire, the crossbowmen furiously discharged their bolts at their new adversaries, so that small internecine fights added to the confusion. The heavily armoured French knights were not to be withstood; they relentlessly battered their way forward towards the Prince of Wales’s division, leaving behind them a trail of their own arrow-pierced knights and horses floundering among the crossbowmen they had ridden down.
In the meantime the divisions in the rear had also brushed past the luckless Genoese and deployed into position until a continuous line was formed roughly equal in length and parallel to the English position. Then began the series of fruitless charges of heavily clad horsemen lumbering uphill against showers of arrows remorselessly plaguing them; the great stallions, mad from the pain of the keen, barbed shafts, broke from all control. They pushed, reared, swerved and plunged, striking and lashing out hideously. Soon the ground was heaped with the bodies of men and horses. The men-at-arms forced their reluctant steeds forward, struggling on with heads bowed; the horses, belaboured with lengthy and fierce mediaeval spurs, were noisily shuffled towards the dismounted, armoured formations in front of them, whilst being assailed by a short-range crossfire of arrows from their flanks. As in almost every battle, the main assault of the French was directed against the dismounted men-at-arms rather than against the archers; a situation due mainly to the fact that they were ‘channelled’ that way in their efforts to get away from the hissing arrows. The Count d’Alençon and his remaining knights had reached and engaged in hand-to-hand fighting the battle of the Prince of Wales, whilst others had closed with Northampton’s division. These were not concerted efforts but rather irregular and spasmodic surges that did not cause the English line to yield a single foot.
French casualties rose rapidly. The ground was heaped high with the bodies of men and horses. The Welsh and Irish foot soldiers now began to creep forward, bearing their great sharp knives. These men, clad in thick leather jerkins, nimble of foot and accustomed to a life of activity, mingled fearlessly among the confused masses of fighting men, creeping beneath the horses’ bellies, standing up when they got a chance to stab horses and men. They slew by stabs and gashes through the joints in the armour those French men-at-arms, who rolled helplessly like turtles upturned amid the press.
The numerical superiority of the French enabled them to persist in their efforts, unsuccessful as they appeared to be up to then. Whenever a man fell, another lurched forward to take his place from the apparently inexhaustible supply of the French army. In this manner the pressure on the English line increased, particularly on the right, where Godfrey Harcourt began to feel anxious for the safety of his royal charge. In person, he ran clumsily across to the nearest unit of Northampton’s division – that commanded by the Earl of Arundel – and begged him to put in a counter-attack, so striking in the flank those enemy assailing the Prince’s division. Harcourt then sent a messenger to the King, asking for reinforcements. From his command-post high in the windmill, the King could see that Arundel’s counter-attack was taking effect; that it was not yet the opportune moment to throw in his precious reserve. Without taking his eyes from the surging, heaving battle spread out before him like a colourful carpet, he said:
‘Let the boy win his spurs,’ waving his hand in dismissal as he spoke. The experienced soldier and King was right in his judgment. When the messenger arrived back, the Prince and his men-at-arms were sitting among the dead, resting after beating off the attack. In front of their position were more than 1,500 dead French men-at-arms.
In wave after wave, not continuously and with varying intervals, the French chivalry bravely and characteristically thundered clumsily up to the English position, without ever effecting a penetration before being beaten back. In the pauses the English archers would leave their lines, run forward to search for arrows among the dead. They did not waste time trying to pull them from the bodies of the dead, knowing that the barbed arrow-head could only be removed from soft flesh by major feats of surgery or extensive crude carpentry.
The old, blind King of Bohemia sat restlessly chafing on his charger, hearing all around him the noise of the battle. He repeatedly asked after its progress and then said:
‘Sirs, ye are my men, my friends and companions. I require ye to lead me so far forward that I may strike one stroke with my sword.’
Two knights buckled the reins of their bridles to those of his horse, lest they should lose him in the press, and the three charged forward together. In the centre of them the old King held his sightless head high as though sniffing the scent of battle. The trio reached the fighting, guided their wrenching horses forward until they were brought up to a standstill by the press. The aged monarch swung a stroke with his sword, struck again – sometimes at thin air, sometimes feeling solid resistance that jarred his arm. They fought valiantly but perhaps ventured too far forward, to be found next day, still tethered to their King, about whom they lay dead.
The rearmost men, carried forward by their own momentum, surged on to the top of the foremost, to wedge the whole into a helpless, choking mass. Still the pitiless arrows hissed into the press and the entire French fighting line became a confused welter of struggling animals, maimed crossbowmen and fallen men-at-arms, who, crippled by the weight of their armour, lay an easy prey to the long, keen knives of the Welsh. It is reported that at least fifteen attacks were put in by the French, who did not realise in 1346 and still did not comprehend nearly 100 years later at Agincourt, that to force a fine of bowmen supported by men-at-arms with a frontal attack was an almost hopeless task for cavalry. There is little that can be more disconcerting to charging cavalry than a flight of arrows, laying low not only many of the riders but also causing disorder by setting the wounded horses plunging and rearing so as to sadly check the impetus of the charge. Then, as the charge neared the English position, the wounds to man and horse became more numerous, the disorder increased, the pace progressively slackened until at last the charge came to a standstill, wavered and then withdrew.
The fight went on after darkness had fallen, under a rising moon, until late in the evening it petered out to give way to an uneasy semi-silence broken only by the groans of the wounded. Philip of France, with only three score knights remaining, was unwilling to believe that all was lost; he was prevented from personally leading yet another charge by the restraining hand on his horse’s bridle of Sir John of Heynault, who said:
‘Sire, depart while there is yet time. Lose not yourself willingly. If this field is lost, you shall recover it again another season.’
The English had won the day without stirring a foot from their position; the enemy had conveniently come to them to be killed. More than a third of his number lay dead before the unbroken English lines, the majority laid low by clothyard shafts. Wearied with slaughter and satiated with victory, the English lay down and slept, supperless, where they had fought. The Irish and Welsh infantry were out in full force, combing the battlefield and giving no quarter as they finished off those who had fallen but still lived. There was no attempt made to pursue the vanquished, who melted away silently into the night, each man retreating in whatever direction he fancied because there were few left to give commands or orders. King Philip had lost his own brother, the Count d’Alençon; his brother-in-law, John of Bohemia, and his nephew, the Count of Blois, besides a clean sweep of his generals. The flower of the chivalry of France had been wiped out, more than 1,500 of them, in a total casualty list of over 10,000. The rest of the army, the allies from Bohemia, Hainault and Flanders, dispersed and returned to their homes. In a few hours Philip, the most powerful monarch in Western Europe, had lost an army.
The next morning, Sunday, the 27th of August, arrived with a thick fog, as though mercifully to blanket the grim scene – the valley black with the bodies of men and horses. Edward sent his clerks out to make a tally of the dead, and, to this day, the scene of their labours is known as the Valley of the Clerks.
Before leaving the scene it might be opportune to consider why an overwhelming victory should have been gained by a force so much smaller in numbers than their enemy. Crécy proved that the archer, when supported by dismounted men-at-arms, could beat off the most determined cavalry charges. This was not news to Edward; he had learned much from Halidon Hill, Morlaix and other smaller battles, but probably even he was surprised at the way in which the battle had, for him, been so purely defensive. This is borne out by the fact that he had resisted using his reserve, even to aid his son; that he held them firmly under his hand, intending to launch them in a great, final counter-attack, a course of action made unnecessary by the desperate and senseless bravery of the French knights, who learned nothing of what was happening from those who had charged before them and persisted in following the only creed they knew. In the end this resulted in the flower of French chivalry lying dead with arrows bristling from their bodies or awaiting the bloody knives of the Welsh and Irish.
Therein lay a lesson that the French never learned, refusing in their class-pride to recognise that their defeat was at the hands of despised peasants. For generations they persisted in the delusion that the defeat was due to the stability of dismounted English men-at-arms. In part this was true, because the newly successful English tactical scheme depended upon men-at-arms fighting dismounted and in mutual support of the archers. Undoubtedly, the qualities of the two armies had a great bearing on the result of the battle; on the one hand the English were well trained, well led, well disciplined and well armed. The French, on the other hand, were a hastily collected force from different countries, not particularly well trained and no unit knowing much about its neighbours. As a result it lacked cohesion, neither trusting nor respecting each other, so that, as an army, it was bound to disintegrate when exposed to ordered blows.
In this day and age it might seem incredulous that such a succession of fruitless charges should have been made when each one was obviously being decimated. Such a statement must be considered in the light of the happenings at Waterloo nearly 500 years later, when the cream of Napoléon’s cavalry were wiped out in a succession of fruitless uphill charges against squares of British infantrymen, descendants of the archers of Crécy; or, even to the present day, within living memory are the vast and bloody onslaughts made on prepared positions by infantry during the war of 1914 – 18.
The Battle of Crécy marks a step in the progress of the military art, in the age-long contest between mounted and dismounted men, between missile and personal weapons and in the emergence of a third arm: artillery. It was a battle that should have taught a striking lesson to feudal chivalry, but the old tradition hallowing the mounted knight as the most honourable name in warfare was strong enough to be perpetuated for another century; the methods that really died on the 26th of August 1346 were still to be breathing in 1415 and even later. It would take more than one such disaster to destroy a system so intimately bound up with mediaeval life and ideas.
As an ironical epitaph to the French knight, it might well be said that his chivalrous code would have been horrified at the very thought of shirking a direct frontal attack against a numerically inferior enemy!