I want to draw your attention to a turning point in history that doesn't get nearly enough
attention.
I believe that from a purely military perspective it signaled the end of the medieval era.
It brought into focus some of the trends that were just beginning to emerge, that would
continue for the next 500 years.
This turning point was the Battle of Agincourt, on October 25th, 1415.
This battle was small part of the Hundred Years War between England and France.
King Henry V of England had invaded with a small army and some unrealistic goals.
After a few months of campaigning and some very modest success, he resolved to head to
English Calais, and then back across the channel.
As the English approached Calais, the French army finally caught up with them, and perused
them north.
By this point the English were exhausted, and the French easily overtook them, placing
themselves between the English army and the coast.
The English were now cut off, stuck in enemy territory, with winter fast approaching.
This was a bad position, which was just going to deteriorate with each passing day.
Let's take a moment to look at the relative strength of these armies.
The French army had around 2,400 cavalry, 7,600 heavy infantry, 4,000 archers, 1,500
crossbowmen.
The English army had no cavalry, 1,000 heavy infantry, 5,000 archers, and no crossbowmen.
Let me just note here that these numbers are hotly debated.
I spent some time looking into some of the various arguments, and in my opinion these
numbers make the most sense, but take that with a grain of salt.
Historians who have devoted their entire careers to this subject have, in a way, thrown up
their hands in frustration.
This is what we do know with certainty.
We know what kinds of troops made up each army, and we know that the English were significantly
outnumbered.
So, the English and the French squared off across a muddy field.
This field was flanked on both sides by treelines.
The English were to the south, English territory was to the north, and between stood the French.
The French arrayed themselves in three lines of battle.
The lines were mixed, but most of their cavalry was placed forward, on the wings, while most
of their archers were held back in the third line.
The English, being outnumbered, arrayed themselves in one line.
They placed all of their heavy infantry in the middle, with archers on the wings.
They also concealed some archers in the woods, on both sides of the field.
The archers deployed defensive wooden stakes in front of them, which were supposed to deter
any direct charge and funnel enemies towards the heavy infantry in the middle.
They were otherwise undefended.
The English had an unusual problem.
Look at the makeup of this army.
It's idiotic, right?
They didn't do this on purpose.
At the beginning of the campaign, it was double this size, with normal proportions, but casualties
and attrition left them with this lopsided arrangement.
So, the two armies formed up.
Neither wanted to make the first move.
For the French, they had several thousand men who had fallen behind during the march.
These men would be trickling in over the next few days.
Plus, they were well supplied.
They could afford to wait.
For the English, they had created a little makeshift defensive position for themselves,
that they didn't want to leave.
But, some accounts say that the English were out of food, which put a ticking clock on
their situation.
After a lengthy standoff, the English moved first.
Their archers dismantled their defensive wooden stakes, and carried them forward as the whole
army advanced.
The French, still content to wait, just watched this happen.
This may have been a mistake, but we will never know.
The English regrouped at a new forward position, and reconstructed their makeshift defenses.
This new position put the French within the extreme range of the English longbow.
Before too long the French started to get pelted by a few arrows.
The French were ordered to advance.
The men on the front lines were immediately hit with unexpectedly heavy arrow fire, which
caused some of the units to try to pull back, while others continued to advance.
This caused a big mess, and the battle was only minutes old.
The French cavalry was not discouraged, and charged heroically into the arrow fire.
They headed straight the English archers, who appeared to be in exposed positions.
As they advanced, the English hit them with volley after volley, but soon enough the French
reached the English line.
The defensive wooden stakes did their job, and the first group of cavalry to reach the
archers found themselves impaled on the spikes.
Apparently this caused the horses further back to panic, and many of them now refused
to charge the archers.
There was some isolated hand to hand fighting, but for the most part the cavalry just darted
back and forth in front of the English longbowmen, as they continued to fire.
After failing to regroup and mount a second charge, the French cavalry turned to withdraw.
As they did this, chaos started to spread, and the withdrawal turned into a full blown
route.
All order broke down, and the the French cavalry uncontrollably crashed into their own heavy
infantry, causing general pandemonium.
Still under fire, the French infantry from the first and second lines regrouped, and
then advanced.
Remember that the field was muddy, and was now completely tore up after that failed cavalry
charge.
The infantry were weighed down in full armour, and had serious difficulty navigating the
mud.
They advanced at a snail's pace, and the entire time the English longbowmen were doing their
thing.
When they reached the English line, they were totally exhausted, but nevertheless charged
the English centre.
The French infantry still significantly outnumbered the English, and the English were forced to
slowly give ground.
As you can imagine, the English archers had a field day with the stationary French infantry
at close range.
Despite all of this punishment, the French troops continued to gain ground.
This fighting continued for three hours, and was intense.
As the English longbowmen began to run out of arrows, they picked up swords, and went
to reinforce the heavy infantry.
The English King personally intervened and engaged in hand to hand fighting.
He actually took an axe blow to the helmet.
The English were fighting for their lives.
After hours of brutal fighting, a couple of French units broke and pulled back.
The English were on their toes, and immediately poured into the gap in the French lines.
This was enough.
The commanders of the French infantry were all dead, and, leaderless, individual French
units began to surrender to the English en masse.
The remaining units broke, and fled.
The English now had thousands of prisoners, but still faced the uncommitted French third
line.
They sent out a messenger, saying something to the effect of "withdraw or be destroyed."
The English then set about barbarically slaughtering thousands of their prisoners.
Why did they do this?
Maybe it was supposed to intimidate the remaining French.
Maybe they didn't have enough men to guard the prisoners and fight at the same time.
Maybe they were overcome with simple bloodlust.
Regardless, the French third line got the message, and quietly withdrew from the field.
The battle was now over, and it was a stunning English victory.
The French lost somewhere around 8,000 men.
The English lost around 100.
So what did this mean for world history?
Why was this such a big turning point?
This battle crystallized a couple of trends that would come to redefine European warfare.
First, the rise of projectile weapons.
Gunpowder was around, but its military usage was not yet fully realized.
Agincourt gave us a peek at the world to come.
Shortbows, which were common before the 15th century, fired arrows that would bounce off
of most heavy armour.
Longbows, which the English were using at Agincourt, had an extremely long range, and
had the power to punch through platemail.
This improvement in projectile weapons was a development that was going to continue,
and would only become more pronounced with the widespread introduction of the flintlock
muskets some years later.
Second, heavy armour just wasn't what it used to be.
When heavy infantry couldn't move fast enough to engage with longbowmen or musketmen, they
were transforming themselves into nothing more than slowly moving targets.
Going forward, heavy infantry had to be paired with longbowmen or musketmen in order to be
effective.
Third, the death of the cavalry charge.
Beginning with Agincourt, this could no longer every army's the trump card.
Obviously mounted troops would be widely used and situationally effective for centuries,
but look at what happened here.
The English turned a frontal attack into a route, and barely even had to come face to
face with the enemy.
This was new.
Cavalry couldn't be relied on as an army's all-purpose sledgehammer anymore.
Europe would spend the next couple of centuries trying to adapt to this new paradigm.
I have a Patreon page!
If you're interested in donating, head on over to patreon.com/historiacivilis.
It's the best way to see my videos before I release them to the general public, if you're
into that sort of thing.