Battle of Agincourt may have been an even contest

There was a show on Public Television(PBS) called Battlefield Detectives(?) that examined the history & site, weopans, ect. They concluded that the longbows wern't as effective as advertised & the actuall defeat was caused by the nature of the soil. They think the soil changed from solid where the French started to a sticky clingy goo that, in effect, caused a "crowd stampede" disaster as the leading troops bogged down & the troops behind continued to push the crowd of troops forward, ending up in a mess that the English finished up with knives.
 
The English had to climb over walls of dead French men that were 6 feet high to get at the French. Now if the French only out number the English by 2 to 1 then their whole army must have been filled by French Aristocrats because most of those were wiped out. Still there is always some one around who will try and make their name be rewriting history
 
Whichever way you paint it, Agincourt was a military success for the British , of course I'm biased. The British army had suffered disease, starvation and other vicissitudes. They ended up facing the French and chose where to do battle - the French obliged and lost.

We can argue about the superiority of the longbow, the inferiority of command (on both sides), but at the end of the day a severley depleted, exhausted and hungry army took on a well fed and better armoured army and won!

For me the Battle of Agincourt speaks volumes about the arrogance of the nobility - their belief that knights were the only ones capable of fighting and the reality, that it is the common soldier thatwins wars, not just the man with a map and a big hand. Also that leadership by example and from the front do work and are essential for the success of any kind of fight.
 
Partisan said:
Whichever way you paint it, Agincourt was a military success for the British , of course I'm biased. The British army had suffered disease, starvation and other vicissitudes. They ended up facing the French and chose where to do battle - the French obliged and lost.

We can argue about the superiority of the longbow, the inferiority of command (on both sides), but at the end of the day a severley depleted, exhausted and hungry army took on a well fed and better armoured army and won!

For me the Battle of Agincourt speaks volumes about the arrogance of the nobility - their belief that knights were the only ones capable of fighting and the reality, that it is the common soldier thatwins wars, not just the man with a map and a big hand. Also that leadership by example and from the front do work and are essential for the success of any kind of fight.
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well in all seriousness a well dicipline highly experienced army took on an army of new recruits, levy's and even knights who haven't experienced the horror of combat can be looked down upon as inexperienced, no good soldiers. So the British position wasn't bad. The french attacked and anyone who understands a battle you shouldn't attack, a well defended position unless you outnumber the enemy 3-1. If it was a 2-1 the lack of leadership on the french side, combined with the british experienced Core of soldiers and leaders won the day.
 
LeEnfield said:
The English had to climb over walls of dead French men that were 6 feet high to get at the French.
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True, there was about fifty milion dead french soldiers and still french had 900 reserve armies of twenty bilion more and kept cloning more!

Got any more rubbish? Or do you base it on medieval chronicles that routinely made armies 10-100 times larger (i **** you not German chronicles claimed there were 400.000 Poles and Lithuanians under Grunwald) inflatind the army 10 times).

LeEnfield said:
then their whole army must have been filled by French Aristocrats because most of those were wiped out.
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Really?! You do realise that the highest casuality number for the French was 10.000 together with about 2000 captives?

Lets take away approximately Genoise and French 1000 Crossbowmen who got ran over by their own cavalry, at least 5000 Squires who went together with their knights and we have at most 5000 nobles.

At the time France had approximately 60.000 nobles of age that made up total of its mobilisation strength so the casualities at Azincourt made up about 8% of their aristocracy.

It took several more years before the Troyes treaty so France was hardly gutted, the victory was great but by now its apparent that French forces have been inflated in size while English severely downsized.

There's a current opinion among academics that at one point (in order to make the victory seem greater) the contingent of men-at-arms at least 3000 strong was cut out from the picture that would make the English 8000-9000 strong against a likely French force of 20.000.
 
Panzercracker said:
True, there was about fifty milion dead french soldiers and still french had 900 reserve armies of twenty bilion more and kept cloning more!

Got any more rubbish? Or do you base it on medieval chronicles that routinely made armies 10-100 times larger (i **** you not German chronicles claimed there were 400.000 Poles and Lithuanians under Grunwald) inflatind the army 10 times).


Really?! You do realise that the highest casuality number for the French was 10.000 together with about 2000 captives?

Lets take away approximately Genoise and French 1000 Crossbowmen who got ran over by their own cavalry, at least 5000 Squires who went together with their knights and we have at most 5000 nobles.

At the time France had approximately 60.000 nobles of age that made up total of its mobilisation strength so the casualities at Azincourt made up about 8% of their aristocracy.

It took several more years before the Troyes treaty so France was hardly gutted, the victory was great but by now its apparent that French forces have been inflated in size while English severely downsized.

There's a current opinion among academics that at one point (in order to make the victory seem greater) the contingent of men-at-arms at least 3000 strong was cut out from the picture that would make the English 8000-9000 strong against a likely French force of 20.000.
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Great points, where did you get the info from? I'm always interested in researching new theories and ideas in history. I know that Henry invaded with an army of about 13K, conducted the siege of Harfleur and then Henry had to call it a day and started the march back to the channel - which the French so rudely interrupted!

To my mind, given my amateur casualty estimates Henry had an effective army of between 10 - 11K after Harfleur, they got hit by disease and probablt suffered another 10 - 15% casualties, with a similar amount combat ineffective - my figs and guesses! So that puts the English at about 8K, with a French army 2 and a bit times their size. Using attacker / defender ratio of 3:1 the French couldn't cut it but went ahead anyway, convinced of their superior numbers, armour and nobility.

The English chose the ground and knowing their enemies tactics laid the battle plan, the French obliged by following their doctrine and suffered accordingly.

Now numbers can be inflated or deflated, after all the victor does get to write the history.

The French suffered a huge defeat, in loss of manpower (8% of the nobility, plus all the nobles in waiting who were Squires), the men at arms (gentlemen farmers) and the loss of pride, losing their national flags and banners as well as getting spanked by an underfed and disease ridden army, that happened, whichever way you cut it. Either way I'm not too sure that I'd want to be one of the "Happy few", but that's just me!:cheers:
 
Partisan said:
Great points, where did you get the info from?
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I get them from "Wojna Stuletnia" by Sułkowski but you can get them from "The Great Battles of 100 Years War" by Antony Rubinstein, since the Polish author i read it in apparently collaborated with the fellow.
Partisan said:
I'm always interested in researching new theories and ideas in history. I know that Henry invaded with an army of about 13K, conducted the siege of Harfleur and then Henry had to call it a day and started the march back to the channel - which the French so rudely interrupted!
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We know Henry had less men at Azincourt then how many he originally came with, we just dont know how much less, its also conceivable that French had less men than originally assumed.
 
Stepping back and examining the situation, with common sence rather then from the english outlook ( which is almost as byas as Alexander the greats campaigns, or Julies Caesers books) imo the french beat themselves, under the circumstances they wanted their pride back as soon as possible and experienced a huge defeat instead, the fact that the english army was alot more experienced, on favorible ground doesn't even matter at this point, all they had to do was sabatoge water lines, kill any people wandering looking for food. The english army would have moved slow with their desease problems and wouldn't be able to counter attack a much larger force. Entirely a fluke just like the river of granicus, the battle of trasmine river ect ect ect, the victory got lucky due to the enemys mind set
 
Panzercracker said:
I get them from "Wojna Stuletnia" by Sułkowski but you can get them from "The Great Battles of 100 Years War" by Antony Rubinstein, since the Polish author i read it in apparently collaborated with the fellow.
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I'll check it out, thanks for that.
 
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