While the great council met in Constance, which was finally supposed to end the schism between the popes in Rome and Avignon, the conflict that went down in history as the Hundred Years’ War between France and England flared up again in the West. Since 1337, the Plantagenet and Valois dynasties fought each other over the question of who was dependent on whom through various marriages and what inheritances were associated with it.
At times the English were able to extend their rule to large parts of France through sensational battle victories at Crecy (1346) and Poitiers (1356), but this empire had melted away at the turn of the 15th century.
The 29-year-old Henry V from the House of Lancaster, a branch of the Plantagenets, wanted to restitute the English possessions with a large-scale campaign. In August 1415 he landed in Normandy with 2,000 knights and 8,000 foot soldiers and surrounded the port city of Harfleur. But the siege dragged on, so that the French court –since King Charles VI was considered „mad“, the connétable Charles I d’Albret took command – could mobilize an army while its English opponents were decimated by hunger, cold and disease became. When Henry wanted to make his way to Calais, he was confronted by the French near Azincourt on October 25th.
Just a few years later, the French chronicler Enguerrand de Monstrelet described the battle. Illumination is famous in his work, completed around 1450, which shows the formation of the two armies before the battle. The amazing thing about it: Hardly any detail is reproduced correctly, as the historian Martin H. Schulz wrote in the magazine „Military history“ of the Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr.
The unknown illustrator placed the Anglo-Welsh troops on the right and the French on the left, identified by their different uniforms. Both armies are shown as being of the same size. Archers who also wear armor are tightly packed in front of the lines of heavily armed armored riders. Between the Bogners you can see soldiers fighting on foot and only recognizable by their lances. Both armies face each other on level and open ground, with a hail of arrows the riflemen have already opened the engagement.
But it wasn’t like that. The French had already confronted their exhausted opponents on the evening of October 24th. It was too late for a battle, so both armies camped not far from each other Early in the morning they took up their positions. Rain began. The opponents remained separated from each other by a kilometer for four hours. Since the French blocked the way to Calais, they relied on Henry having to move first – based on the military experience of the time, this was a disadvantage.
However, contrary to what is shown in the picture, the battlefield was framed by forest. This limited the battle lines and prevented Charles I d’Albret from exercising his numerical superiority. Because the armies were by no means equally strong. While previously a numerical ratio of around three to one was assumed in favor of the French, more recent studies show a ratio of three to two.
The difference in the troop’s equipment and formation was clear. Many Englishmen, perhaps even the majority, may have led the famous longbow. This weapon was up to 1.80 meters long. It allowed six shots per minute, which, as modern experiments show, could penetrate armor plates. Their porters were free men who regularly practiced their weapons; Henry had contractually recruited them for the campaign. With his royal authority, the English king was also able to persuade his noble cavalry to sit down and protect the lightly armed Bogners.
The French, on the other hand, were mostly levies of the nobility, who were hardly prepared to follow the instructions of the Connétable. Great names such as the Dukes of Alencon and Bar fought to get a front-line spot that promised not only glory but also high-ranking prisoners who meant lucrative ransoms.
Since the number of riflemen, some of whom had bows but most of whom had crossbows, was significantly smaller than that of the English, they were placed behind the knights. Three meetings were formed from them, while the English probably left it at a battle line because of their smaller number. A few hundred armored riders marched on the flanks to act as vanguards to attack the enemy light-armed men.
After four hours of exhausting waiting in the rain, Heinrich gave his people the order to reduce the distance to the enemy by around 700 meters. This brought the French into the field of fire of the English Bogners, who did not carry a armor –as in the illustration – but carried another defensive weapon: massive, sharpened stakes that were now rammed into the ground at a distance of one meter. Only a few people on both sides probably had skewers, as shown in the picture.
What is certain is that the hail of arrows from the English archers provoked the French advance guard to attack. However, the rain had turned the farmland into a mud in which the heavily armored knights could not develop their speed. They offered easy targets for the longbow. Many fell. As the survivors retreated, they encountered the first meeting of the French on foot, which laboriously worked its way through the mud to the English field fortifications. The dead and wounded formed a real wall made of iron there. „At the same time, the remnants of the first and second meetings pushed against the French fighting at the front from behind and literally pressed them into the English spears and lances“, writes Schulz.
After firing their arrows, the Bogners also intervened in the fight alongside the English knights. On the rain-softened ground they had the great advantage of mobility between the many dead people. By now, panic must have gripped the French, who had been victorious for so long.
Since they had a third row of heavily armed riders at their disposal, Heinrich gave the order around midday to kill all the prisoners. On the one hand, he wanted to prevent his people from dealing with the Guarding potential ransom payers than with the enemy. On the other hand, it seemed possible that the French would turn against their enemy again. However, the noblest and richest prisoners were left out.
Shortly after noon, between 1,500 and 2,000 French nobles, the elite of the French knighthood, were dead. The English only counted a few hundred dead. The rest had the way to Calais. In the Treaty of Troyes, Charles VI had to recognize Henry V as son-in-law and future king. However, his early death saved France from its difficult situation.
This double asymmetry – French numerical superiority with much higher losses – was not visible in the painting in Monstrelet’s book On the one hand, the chronicler and his illustrator used the traditional formal language of the time. She followed the conventions of a battle description rather than reality.
In addition, Monstrelet, who came from the lower nobility of Picardy, was a partisan of the Valois branch that ruled Burgundy. Their heads made repeated pacts with the English king during the Hundred Years’ War. But at Azincourt, the brothers of John Fearless, Anton of Brabant and Philip of Nevers, fought on the side of France and fell on the battlefield. Monstrelet and his painter were neither eyewitnesses to the battle, nor were they interested in portraying their own people as inferior, sums up Scholz.