Overview:
Crecy was one of history's most decisive battles. After the battle of Sluys, Edward III landed in Normandy in July 1346 with about 10,000 men. The French pursued. Edward III decided to halt near Crecy in Normandy and to prepare for battle the next day. However, the French vanguard made contact and started to attack without the benefit of a plan. The French made as many as 15 attacks and the English checked each one in turn mainly because of the English longbowmen. At the end, the French were decimated and the English had a decisive victory.

At Crécy, the carefully deployed and well disciplined army of Edward III humbled King Phillip VI of France and left 1,500 of the chivalry of France dead on the field in this famous battle during Edward's chevauchee of 1346 AD during the 100 Years War.

First major battle of the Hundred Years' War fought on Saturday, August 26, 1346. in which Philip VI of France was defeated by Edward III of England at the village of Crécy-en-Ponthieu, now in Somme département, France, 18 km/11 mi northeast of Abbeville. The English victory reinforced the lesson of Courtrai – that infantry were well capable of dealing with cavalry.

Edward's forces were arranged in three divisions, all dismounted, with Welsh archers and spearmen in the front ranks. The French arrived in the afternoon; their Genoese crossbowmen opened the battle, but rain had slacked their bowstrings and they were rapidly annihilated by the Welsh bowmen who had unstrung their bows and kept the strings dry. The French knights, impatient for victory, then rode forward but, clustered together by the confined battlefield, they were rapidly picked off by bowmen and spearmen. The battle then resolved itself into a series of charges – some historians say as many as 15 – by the French knights against the English lines, but they were eventually beaten off and before nightfall were in retreat.

Following his sack of Caen and unsuccessful siege of Rouen, the English King Edward III found his army of 10,000 threatened by the French king Phillip VI's army of 20,000. Retiring across the Seine River, they were nearly trapped at the Somme and had to fight their way across the ford at Blanchetacque. Hard pressed, Edward took up strong defensive positions near Crécy and offered battle to the French.

For his part, King Phillip had been careful, looking for an opportunity to employ his superiority in numbers and especially the weight of his Knights to best advantage. His Nobles, however, were impatient. Confident of their numbers and prowess, they forced Phillip to give battle on August 25, 1346.

Edward had chosen his position well. A steep hill overlooking the narrow valley of the Maye River was cut in broad terraces for agriculture. Edward deployed his army on three levels. On the lowest terrace on the wings he placed English archers. On the next level up, he placed the balance of his archers in the centre with dismounted men-at-arms on the wings. On the highest level, he posted a strong line of dismounted men-at-arms. The Crécy-Grange Wood protected his rear and a windmill provided a convenient command post.

Phillip opened the battle by advancing his mercenary Genoese crossbowmen, who were worsted in a firefight with the English long bow. The crossbowmen were hampered due to their lesser rate of fire and the lack of protective pavises (which were left with the baggage train due to the haste of the attack). As they retired, the French Knights rode them down in distain and then charged forward into a hail of English archery. Lacking co-ordination and robbed of impetus by the steep slopes, the French knights made little headway.

The chevaliers and their horses fell by the score. One desperate charge brought the French into melee with the archers of the Prince of Wales battle, but they were repulsed without significant loss. The English men-at-arms were largely spectators to the battle as the English longbowmen effectively covered the field with their shafts. By the day's end, an estimated 1,500 French knights and nobles lay dead on the field, with the remainder greatly dispirited and on the verge of rebellion against King Phillip, who was forced to break off the fight and retire.

The victory left Edward free to march on Calais, which he captured on August 3rd after several minor battles. Contributing to Edward's success was the distraction created by Henry, the Duke of Lancaster's own chevauchee to the south in Poitou. Meanwhile, with most of English arms overseas, King David of Scotland seized this opportunity to cross the border and ravage southward until repulsed at Durham in October 1346 by an army led by the ArchBishop of York.

Crécy-en-Ponthieu, now in Somme département, France, 18 km/11 mi northeast of Abbeville.
The battle line was approximately 2,000 yards wide.

English dispositions
As in the previous battles against the Scottish, Edward III chose to place his forces in an area of flat agricultural terrain, surrounded by natural obstacles in the flanks. The king placed himself and his staff in a windmill at the small hill that protected the rear, where he could control the course of the battle. In a strongly defensive position, Edward III ordered that everybody should fight on foot and distributed the army between three groups. His sixteen-year-old son, Edward, the Black Prince, was to command one of them. The army's secret weapon, the longbowmen recruited from his Welsh dominions, were arrayed in a V-formation along the crest of the hill. In the period of waiting time that followed, the English built a system of ditches, pits and caltrops to maim and bring down the enemy cavalry.

The French army, commanded by Philip VI, was much more disorganized, due to an excess of confidence on the part of his noble knights. Roughly, Philip stationed his Genoese mercenary crossbowmen in the front line, with the cavalry in the back.

The first attack was from the crossbowmen, who launched a shower of volleys with the purpose of disorganizing and frightening the English infantry. This first move was accompanied by the sound of musical instruments, brought by Philip VI to scare the enemy. But the crossbowmen would prove completely useless. With a firing rate of 3 to 5 volleys a minute, they were no match for the longbowmen, who could fire 10 to 12 arrows in the same period of time. Furthermore, their weapons were damaged by the rainfall that occurred before the battle while the longbowmen were able to avoid harm to their weapons by simply unstringing their bows until the weather improved. Frightened and confused they retreated with heavy losses, some of them accidentally smashed by the French cavalry.

Seeing the feeble result of the crossbowmen, the French cavalry charged, organized in rows. However the slope and manmade obstacles, disrupted the might of the charge. At the same time, the longbowmen discharged a curtain of arrows on the knights. The attack could not break the English formation, even after several attempts.

At nightfall, Philip VI, himself wounded, ordered retreat. The result was a humiliating defeat for France.

Battle of Crecy. Les Grandes Chroniques de France.
French illuminated manuscript circa 1411-20 (BL. f.69v) Some highlights of the battle of Crécy

* French forces numbered approximately 36,000.
* English forces numbered approximately 12,000 of which 7,000 were archers.
* The battle line was approximately 2,000 yards wide.
* The English army, occupying the top of a gentle ridge near the town, consisted of three groups of men-at-arms and spearmen, with archers placed on their sides. The archers formed ranks resembling an outward V.
* Each English archer carried 2 sheaves of arrows (48) into battle. Resupply was accomplished by going back thru the lines or having more brought forward.
* The bow draw weights were normally from 80 to 120 lbs.
* Arrows, depending on type and weight, could be shot 250 to 300 yards.
* The English archers could shoot an average of 10 arrows per minute.
* The total number of arrows shot during the battle is estimated at a half million.
* There were 14 to 16 charges made against the English lines from the start of the battle at 4:00 PM until the completion at midnight.
* Casulties were estimated from 5,000 (low) to 10,000 or more (high) for the French Knights and Genoese crossbowmen. English casulties were several hundred.

From a 15th-century illuminated manuscript of Jean Froissart's Chronicles (BNF, FR 2643, fol. 165v).

Aftermath
This battle established the military supremacy of the English longbow over the French combination of crossbow and armoured knights (due to significantly greater rate of fire and a longer range in the hands of a skilled user), and was to significantly alter the way in which war was conducted for a considerable period of time thereafter. After the Battle of Crécy, Edward III proceeded to besiege the city of Calais, which surrendered to him shortly afterwards, establishing the English dominion on northern France. The following battle in the Hundred Years War, Poitiers in 1356, would return an equal utter defeat for the French.

NOTE: It was during Edward's taking of Caen, on the way to Crecy, that the "mooning" incident occurred. Several hundred Norman soldiers exposed their backsides to the English archers and many of them paid a high price for doing so.