The conflict that came to be known as the Hundred Years War (1337–1453) between England and France began when the English King Edward III, the grandson of the French monarch Philip the Fair, laid claim to the French throne when the French King Charles IV died without a male heir. To further complicate matters, Edward was also a major landholder in France, with titles and possessions dating back to the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Piracy in the English Channel and territorial disputes in Gascony acted as a primer for the war, which broke out in May 1337 and lasted until 1453.
The Hundred Years War pitted the English defensive combined-arms tactical system against the more orthodox and offensively orientated French continental system. Though the French way of war was in appearance a combined-arms system, its over-reliance on heavy cavalry lancers precluded them from fully utilizing their light infantry. Two major campaigns during the war, Crécy and Agincourt, exemplify the differences between the two systems. In these campaigns the French continued to use what had been successful for centuries, while the English showed an amazing ability to adapt tactically over the long war.
In contrast to the continental system, the army that the English King Edward III brought to France was essentially a professional one, made up of knights and well-paid, highly motivated freemen. These freemen were, for the most part, light infantry longbowmen who had perfected their archery skills over years of campaigning in the Anglo-Scottish Wars. But the English combined-arms tactical system was used in a defensive capacity on the continent, relying on the inevitability of the heavy cavalry charge to seal their enemy’s fate on the battlefield. The French nobility did not disappoint them.
English nobility became, in essence, the backbone of the English defensive tactical system by dismounting to reinforce the infantry, bolstering morale and putting their noble selves in the same danger as the common soldier. The English were very fond of dismounting defensively because their preferred method of attack on the continent, the mounted raid or chevauchée, encumbered the English army with treasure, slowing it down sufficiently for a French army to intercept. The chevauchée was intended to destroy French resources, damage the enemy’s prestige and enrich English soldiers.
An unusually detailed description of a medieval army advancing into enemy territory comes from the Chanson des Lorrains, written in the early thirteenth century:
The march begins. Out in front are the scouts and incendiaries. After them come the foragers whose job is to collect the spoils and carry them in the great baggage train. Soon all is in tumult. The peasants, having just come out to their fields, turn back, uttering loud cries. The shepherds gather their flocks and drive them towards the neighbouring woods in the hope of saving them. The incendiaries set the villages on fire and the foragers visit and sack them. The terrified inhabitants are either burned or led away with their hands tied to be held for ransom. Everywhere bells ring the alarm; a surge of fear sweeps over the countryside. Wherever you look you can see helmets glinting in the sun, pennons waving in the breeze, the whole plain covered in horsemen. Money, cattle, mules and sheep are all seized. The smoke billows and spreads, flames crackle. Peasants and shepherds scatter in all directions.
The above description is by no means specific to the medieval period. The armies of Thutmose, Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar and Genghis Khan operated similarly in enemy territory. The fourth-century Roman commentator Vegetius tells us ‘the main and principal point in war is to secure plenty of provisions for oneself and to destroy the enemy by famine. Famine is more terrible than the sword.’ Even the English King Henry V, the commander at Agincourt, is rumoured to have said that ‘war without fire is like sausage without mustard’. Protecting the spoils became central to the success of any military campaign. During the Hundred Years War, when the French did catch up to the encumbered English army, the commanding monarch would order his men to seize a defensible position and prepare for the French onslaught.
The difference in character between the continental system and the English defensive system is significant. The former was based on knighted heavy cavalry, favouring the offensive and elevating the individual on the battlefield. The English system was based on freemen infantry reinforced by dismounted nobility, favouring the defensive and effective combined-arms co-operation. Though social tensions did exist, the relationship between the English nobility and their freemen was a professional one, based on respect for each other’s martial capabilities. The relationship between the French nobility and their men-at-arms was often antagonistic, with the French knights treating their light infantry mercenaries and conscripts as little more than fodder.
These two tactical systems clashed numerous times during the Hundred Years War (Map 5.6), with the French suffering defeat at the hands of English longbowmen right from the beginning of the conflict at the naval battle of Sluys (1340), and at Morlaix (1342), Auberoche (1345) and St Pol de Leon (1346). But of all the campaigns of the 116-year war, the battles at Crécy in 1346 and Agincourt in 1415 stand out as powerful demonstrations of the dominance of the English tactical doctrine over the French heavy-cavalry-based system. Crécy and Agincourt reveal how the French failed to adapt over the duration of the war to the tactics of the invading English.
Map 5.6 England and France in the Hundred Years War.