Overview:
After the successful siege at Harfleur, Henry marched his force of about 6000 knights, archers and men-at-arms towards Calais. During his march the French army of 20,000 was able to position itself between Henry and Calais. Henry used a narrow front channeled by woodland to give his heavily outnumbered force a chance.
The French deployed in three lines. The first line attacked and was repulsed by the English longbowmen.
The second line attacked and was beaten back. The third line moved to engage but loss heart when they crossed the field covered with French dead; they soon retreated. Henry was left with control of the battlefield and a decisive victory. He soon resumed his march to Calais.
 Henry the V with 1,000 men-at-arms backed by 5,000 English longbowmen defeat a French army more than three times his size as the compact position and disjointed French attacks cancel out any disadvantage in numbers.
King Henry V of England landed an army of 10,500 near the Norman port of harfleur. Two-thirds of his army was archers, and at least two-thirds were mounted, for Henry planned a chevauchee to Bordeaux via Paris. The siege of Harfleur took five weeks, however, and greatly reduced his army so that he had but 6,000 left to conduct his campaign. Changing his plan of action, he set off on a 120 mile raid along the length of Normandy with the port of Calais as his target.
The French quickly mobilised and were able to block the direct crossings of the Somme River, forcing Henry to take a wide detour,crossing far to the south at Peronne. Henry pushed his tired and hungry men hard, trying to elude the main French force, butfinally found his way blocked by nearly 30,000 French under Boucicaut and d'Albret encamped near the town of Agincourt.
There was little Henry could do but offer battle. He had at his command approximately 1000 men-at-arms and 5,000 archers. He formed them in a line across a ploughed field comprised of three battles, with his men-at arms in the centre and 2,500 archers on each wing. Woods protected each flank.
The French formed their army three lines deep with 8000 men-at-arms and 1,600 heavily armoured cavalry in the first battle, 3,000-6,000 men-at-arms and 4,000 archers and crossbowmen in the second battle, and 8,000-10,000 cavalry in the third battle. Their plan was to disperse the English archers with their armoured cavalry, and then press forward against Henry's heavily out-numbered men-at-arms.
Grasping the situation, Henry quickly seized the initiative. He advanced his line to within 200-300 yards of the French and had his archers drive their defensive stakes. Then, he ordered them to loose arrows at long range to provoke an impetuous French response. The first French battle advanced, but the French heavy cavalry quickly outranged there supports and made little impact on the English archers. Recoiling under the heavy English fire, the French knights smashed into and through their own line of infantry, which was slogging its way across the rain-sodden ploughed ground.
The French foot reformed and came on, but hit the compact English line with little momentum on a narrow front where their superior numbers gave them little advantage. The second French battle advanced and rejoined the melee, although the French missile troops played little role. The press along the narrow front became so great that the closely packed French soldiers could not properly wield their weapons.
With the English archers harassing their flanks and Henry's battle line unyielding, the French men-at-arms were pushed back. With the battle hanging in the balance, the third French battle lost heart and the majority of it's horsemen left the field. A few hundred Knights remained and made a final charge across the bloodstained field, but to little effect.
By this stage of the battle, the dead were stacked in heaps and the French woundedlay strewn across the field.
The French knights who had been unhorsed in the battle and the heavily armoured men-at-arms who had fallen over the stacked bodies became easy prey for the lightly burdened English longbowmen, who dashed about the field. In addition to their bows, the longbowmen also carried long daggers and mallots which could be used to pierce through plate armour and chain mail. Approximately 2000 French were captured and held prisoners near the English camp in hopes of future ransom.
A French sortie around the woods and into the English rear created a brief panic leading Henry to order the prisoners killed to the dismay of his men-at-arms, who refused. Henry's archers were less reluctant and dispatched approximately half of the less "important" prisoners before the killing was halted. When the day was done, the French left over 600 Knights and nobles dead on the field and another 1,000 prisoner. Henry's losses were approximately 300-400 dead and the balance of his march to Calais were unopposed.
Battle of Agincourt (2)
The Battle of Agincourt was fought on October 25, 1415 – Saint Crispin's Day – in northern France as part of the Hundred Years' War between the heavily outnumbered army of King Henry V of England and that of Charles VI of France, the latter under the command not of the incapacitated king himself but of the Constable Charles d'Albret and various notable French noblemen of the Armagnac party.
One of the most memorable moments in this battle was before it even started. The English King Henry V gave a sanguine speech that rallied his men to fight. This speech was adapted into Shakespeare's Henry V. The English army prevailed against the heavily armoured French cavalry which floundered in the mud and was wiped out in the hail of arrows that rained down on them.
The battle was fought in the defile formed by the wood of Agincourt and that of Tramecourt, at the northern exit of which the army under d'Albret, constable of France, had placed itself so as to bar the way to Calais against the English forces which had been campaigning on the Somme. The night of the 24th of October was spent by the two armies on the ground, and the English had but little shelter from the heavy rain which fell.
Early on the 25th, St Crispin's day, Henry arrayed his little army (about 1000 men-at-arms, 6000 archers, and a few thousand other footmen). It is probable that the usual three "battles" were drawn up in line, each with its archers on the flanks and the dismounted men-at-arms in the centre; the archers being thrown forward in wedge-shaped salients, almost exactly as at the Battle of Crécy.
The French, on the other hand, were drawn up in three lines, each line formed in deep masses. They were at least four times more numerous than the English, but restricted by the nature of the ground to the same extent of front, they were unable to use their full weight (compare Bannockburn); further, the deep mud prevented their artillery from taking part, and the crossbowmen were, as usual, relegated to the rear of the knights and men-at-arms. All were dismounted, save a few knights and men-at-arms on the flanks, who were intended to charge the archers of the enemy.
Prior to the battle, King Henry spoke to his troops from a little gray horse. French accounts state that in his speech he told his men that he and the dukes, earls and other nobles had little to worry about if the French won because they would be captured and ransomed for a good price. The common soldier on the other hand was worth little and so he told them that they had better fight hard.
For three hours after sunrise there was no fighting; then Henry, finding that the French would not advance, moved his army farther into the defile. The archers fixed the pointed stakes, called palings, which they carried to ward off cavalry charges, and opened the engagement with flights of arrows.
The chivalry of France was not an army but a group of knights who came together by request from Charles VI. They were undisciplined and careless of the lessons of the battles of Crécy and Poitiers, and were quickly stung into action; the French mounted men charged, only to be driven back in confusion. The constable himself headed the leading line of dismounted men-at-arms; weighted with their armour, and sinking deep into the mud with every step, they yet reached and engaged the English men-at-arms. For a time the fighting was severe.
The thin line of the defenders was borne back and King Henry was almost beaten to the ground. But at this moment the archers, taking their hatchets, swords or other weapons, penetrated the gaps in the now disordered French, who could not move to cope with their unarmoured assailants, and were slaughtered or taken prisoners to a man. The second line of the French came on, only to be engulfed in the mèlée; its leaders, like those of the first line, were killed or taken, and the commanders of the third sought and found their death in the battle, while their men rode off to safety.
The only success for the French was a sally from Agincourt castle behind the lines. Ysambart D'Agincourt took over the King's baggage. Thinking his rear was under attack Henry ordered the slaughter of the captives, who could esily have armed themselves with the weapons strewn about the field. The nobles and higher officers, wishing to maintain their ability to ransom the captives, refused and the task fell to the common soldiers. Though Henry's actions may have been savage, if the captives were to arm themselves his army would have been crushed between the French forces and the hostages.
In the morning Henry came back to the battlefield and killed any wounded French who survived the night in the open, though all the nobility had already been taken way and any commoners left on the field were too badly injured to survive without extreme medical care not available for them in the immediate aftermath of the battle.
The total loss of the English is stated at thirteen men-at-arms (including Edward, Duke of York, grandson of Edward III) and about 100 of the footmen. The French lost 5000 of noble birth killed, including the constable, 3 dukes, 5 counts and 90 barons (see below); 1000 more were taken prisoner, amongst them the duke of Orléans (the Charles d'Orléans of literature) and Jean Le Maingre, marshall of France.
A modified explanation of the battle
Recent experiments at Agincourt and elsewhere suggest that the English archers inflicted little damage on the heavily armored French knights and men-at-arms with their arrows because of the recent adoption of steel (rather than iron) for armor.
However these limited sets of tests were made for a television program about Agincourt:
 The draw weight of the longbows used may or may not have been correct. It is unlikely that they were using bows with the average draw weight of those found on the Mary Rose;
The bodkin arrow heads which were used in the tests was one of many possible designs;
The tests assumed that the majority of armour was steel of consistent quality and that the arrow heads were of iron, when they too might have been steel;
It failed to test what would happen at close range with arrows aimed at weak points in the armour.
The tests also failed to account for the fact that the average English archer was the master of his trade able to consitently hit targets in excess of two hundred yards.
It is possible, then, that most of the casualties of the archery were the less-armored horses, causing the mounted fighters to be thrown down onto the muddy ground, where they had difficulty in arising. In addition, the French troops were exhausted by struggling through the quagmire which they were churning up on the battlefield and arrived piecemeal at the English line of battle.
A second feature contributing to the French defeat was the funnel-shaped battlefield that caused the French forces to converge as they approached the English lines. As they moved forward, they jostled each other and tripped over the bodies of the fallen horses and men. It is possible that many actually suffocated as they were trampled into the mud by the following soldiers and knights. This suggestion has been supported by computer models and video footage used to study crowd disasters at football grounds and music concerts.
Into this chaos, the lightly armored archers moved, much more nimbly than the heavily armored French, and were able to inflict severe damage on the enemy with their short swords, knives, mallets, and other tools. This suggests that the archers did considerably more damage as infantry than as archers.
The Field of Azincourt october 2006. (photo by Kaare Johannesen)
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Date: 25 Oct 1415, Saint Crispin's Day
Location: Agincourt France
Outcome: English victory. Decisive battle
Principal Combatants.
English Leadership: Henry V King of England
English Strength: 5,900 troops, archers and men-at-arms
English Casualties: 400
French Leadership: Charles d'Albret and Jean Bouciquaut II
French Strength: 25,000 troops
French Casualties: 8,000. Over 600 Knights and nobles dead on the field and another 1,000 prisoner.
Notable casualties
Antoine of Burgundy, Duke of Brabant and Limburg (b.1384)
Philip of Burgundy, Count of Nevers and Rethel (b.1389)
Charles I d'Albret, Count of Dreux, the Constable of France
John II, Count of Bethune (b.1359)
John I, Duke of Alençon (b.1385)
Frederick of Lorraine, Count of Vaudemont (b.1371)
Robert, Count of Marles and Soissons
Edward III, Duke of Bar (the Duchy of Bar lost its independence as consequence of this death)
John VI, Count of Roucy
Edward, 2nd Duke of York (b.1373)
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Overview
