Battle of Crécy
gigatos | May 31, 2022
Summary
The Battle of Crécy took place on August 26, 1346 in northeastern France and pitted a French army led by King Philip VI against an English army led by King Edward III. The French attacked the English as they plundered northern France during the Hundred Years” War, but the engagement resulted in an English victory and a great loss of life among the French.
The English army had landed on the Cotentin peninsula on July 12. It began to leave a trail of destruction through some of the richest lands in France and came within two miles of Paris, sacking many towns along the way. The English then marched north, hoping to join with an allied Flemish army that had begun an invasion from Flanders. Learning that the Flemings had turned back, and having temporarily driven off the pursuing French, King Edward III ordered his army to prepare a defensive position on a hillside near Crécy-en-Ponthieu. On the rainy afternoon of August 26, the French army, which outnumbered the English, attacked.
During a brief archery duel, a large force of French mercenary crossbowmen were defeated by Welsh and English archers. The French launched a series of cavalry charges, but they were carried out in an improvised and disorderly manner because of having to fight their way through the fleeing crossbowmen, because of the muddy ground, because of having to charge uphill, and because of the ditches dug by the English. Thus, the attacks were thwarted by the effective volleys of the English archers, which caused many casualties. By the time the French charges reached the English men-at-arms, who had dismounted to fight, they had lost much of their momentum. The ensuing hand-to-hand combat was described as “lethal, merciless, cruel and horrible.” The French charges continued late into the night, all with the same result: fierce fighting followed by a Gallic retreat.
The English then besieged the port of Calais. Crécy”s disastrous defeat so weakened the French army that it was prevented from rescuing the town, which fell to the English the following year and remained under English rule for more than two centuries, until 1558. Crécy made clear the effectiveness of the longbow and its influence on the battlefields of Western Europe at the time.
English monarchs had held titles and lands in France since the Norman conquest of 1066, the possession of which made them vassals of the kings of France. After a series of disagreements between Philip VI of France (r. 1328-1350) and Edward III of England (r. 1327-1377), on May 24, 1337 Philip”s Grand Council in Paris agreed that the lands held by Edward in France should revert to Philip on the grounds that he had failed to fulfill his obligations as a vassal. This marked the beginning of the Hundred Years” War, which actually lasted one hundred and sixteen years.
Edward”s army sailed from England on June 29, 1345, and anchored at The Lock in Flanders until July 22, while the English king attended to diplomatic matters. When it finally set sail again, probably with the intention of landing in Normandy, the fleet was dispersed by a storm, which added to other delays made it impossible to undertake any campaign before winter. Meanwhile, Henry, Earl of Derby, devastated Gascony at the head of an Anglo-Gascon army, clearly defeated two large French armies at the battles of Bergerac and Auberoche, and took over a hundred French towns and fortifications in Périgord and Agenais, which served to secure and extend English possessions in Gascony.
In March 1346, a French army of between fifteen and twenty thousand soldiers, “vastly superior” to any that the Anglo-Gascons could field, marched on Gascony, comprising all the military officers of the royal house and commanded by John, Duke of Normandy, son and heir of Philip VI. The army laid siege to the strategic town of Aiguillon. On April 2, a general levy was announced for all able-bodied men in southern France to take up arms; French financial, logistical and human resources were focused on this offensive and Derby, who had become Earl of Lancaster, was morally and contractually obliged to succor his vassal, for his agreement with Lancaster provided that, if he was attacked by superior forces, Edward would “rescue him in one way or another”.
Meanwhile, Edward was recruiting a new army and assembled over seven hundred ships to carry it, the largest English fleet to date. The French were aware of the English king”s movements and relied on their powerful navy to prevent him from landing in northern France, but the French fleet was unable to stop the English ships and Edward crossed the English Channel.
The English landed at Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, Normandy, on July 12, 1346, achieved complete strategic surprise and marched south. Edward”s soldiers razed every village on their way and plundered as much of the population as they could. On July 26 they stormed Caen, the cultural, political, religious, and financial center of northwestern Normandy, and subsequently sacked it for five days, during which time more than five thousand French soldiers and civilians were killed. Among the few prisoners taken by the English was Raoul, Count of Eu and Constable of France. On July 29, Edward sent his fleet back to England, laden with booty, with a letter ordering reinforcements to be assembled, supplies embarked and money raised, and sent to Le Crotoy, on the north bank of the mouth of the Somme River, where they were to be met by the army. The English set out on the march to the Seine River on August 1.
The French military situation was difficult because their main army, commanded by John, Duke of Normandy, son and heir of Philip VI, was engaged in the endless siege of Aiguillon in the southwest. After his surprise landing in Normandy, Edward was ravaging some of France”s richest lands and boasting of his ability to traverse the kingdom unopposed. In addition, a small English contingent supported by Flemish forces invaded France from Flanders on August 2, through an area where the French defenses were totally insufficient to prevent it. The treasury of the kingdom was also almost empty. On July 29, Philip VI ordered a general levy in northern France and all able-bodied men to assemble at Rouen, where the king arrived on the 31st. The English reached the Seine on August 7, nineteen kilometers south of Rouen; they then turned southeast and by August 12 were encamped at Poissy, thirty-two kilometers from Paris, leaving behind them a razed strip thirty kilometers wide on the left bank of the Seine, even burning villages within three kilometers of Paris. Philip”s army marched parallel to the enemy on the other bank and encamped north of Paris, where it received fresh reinforcements. Paris was in an uproar, crowded with refugees, and preparations were made to defend the capital street by street.
Philip sent orders to Duke John of Normandy insisting that he abandon the siege of Aiguillon and march his army northward; he finally did so on August 20, but so late that he was not in time to change the course of events in the north. The French army encamped outside Paris consisted of about eight thousand men-at-arms, six thousand crossbowmen, and many infantry recruits, assembled in the levée. Philip sent a letter of defiance on August 14 proposing that the two armies fight at a mutually agreed place and time, to which Edward replied that he would meet Philip south of the Seine, but without actually committing himself. On August 16 the French took up positions, but Edward hastened to burn Poissy, destroyed its bridge, and marched north.
The French had carried out a scorched earth policy, taking all stored food and thus forcing the English to disperse over a wide region to get supplies, which greatly delayed their advance. Bands of French peasants attacked some of the groups of English soldiers gathering food. Philip arrived at the Somme River a day before Edward, established his base at Amiens and sent large detachments to protect all the bridges and fords that allowed crossing the river between Amiens and the sea. The English were trapped in an area with food shortages. The French left Amiens heading west towards the English, ready to do battle knowing that they would have the advantage of being able to get on the defensive while the English would be forced to try to break through.
Edward was determined to break the French blockade of the Somme and probed at several points, attacking in vain at Hangest and Pont-Remy before moving westward along the river bank. English supplies were running low and the army was starving and demoralized. The English camped north of Acheux on the night of August 24, while the French were ten kilometers away at Abbeville. During the night, the English initiated the crossing of a ford called Blanchetaque, defended by three thousand five hundred Frenchmen; English archers and mounted men-at-arms entered the river and, after a brief engagement, defeated the French. The main French army had followed the English, and their scouts captured some stragglers and several wagons, but Edward succeeded in putting distance between them. Such was the confidence among the French that Edward would not ford the Somme, that the lands on the north bank had not been ravaged, allowing Edward”s army to plunder and resupply.
Meanwhile, the Flemings, who had been repulsed by the French at Estaires, laid siege to Béthune on August 14. They were surrounded by the French after several setbacks, burned the siege guns, and ended their campaign on August 24. Edward received word that the Flemings would not reinforce him shortly after crossing the Somme. Moreover, the ships that were scheduled to await them at Le Crotoy were not in sight, so the English king decided to engage Philip”s army with the forces he had. He had temporarily shaken off the French pursuit and used the time gained to prepare a defensive position at Crécy-en-Ponthieu. Meanwhile, the French returned to Abbeville, crossed the Somme by its bridge and resumed pursuit of the enemy.
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English Army
King Edward III”s army was composed mainly of English and Welsh soldiers, along with some allied Breton and Flemish troops and some German mercenaries, but the exact size and composition of the English forces is unknown. Estimates of the period vary widely; for example, Froissart”s third version of the Chronicles gives a figure of soldiers that is more than double that given in the first. Modern historians have estimated their size at between seven and fifteen thousand men. Andrew Ayton suggests a figure of about fourteen thousand: two thousand five hundred men-at-arms, five thousand longbow archers, three thousand hobelars (light cavalry and mounted archers) and three thousand five hundred spearmen. Clifford Rogers supposes that there were fifteen thousand soldiers: two thousand five hundred men-at-arms, seven thousand archers, three thousand two hundred and fifty hobelars and two thousand three hundred spearmen. Jonathan Sumption, based on the carrying capacity of the original transport fleet, believes that the army numbered between seven and ten thousand soldiers. Up to a thousand men in that army were prisoners who had been conscripted on the promise of royal pardon at the end of the campaign. About half of the English soldiers, including many of the offenders, were veterans.
The men-at-arms of both armies wore a padded gambeson under a coat of mail covering the trunk and limbs, to which was superimposed various pieces of plate armor, more common among the wealthier and veteran men. The heads were protected with bacinets, which were military helmets of iron or steel that left the face uncovered, with a mesh attached to the lower edge of the helmet to protect the throat, neck and shoulders, while a movable visor acted as a facial protector. They also carried shields that had a straight top and a pointed bottom, usually made of thin wood covered with leather. English men-at-arms fought dismounted, and although the weapons they used are unknown, in similar battles they used their spears as pikes or fought with swords and battle axes.
The longbow used by English and Welsh archers was unique to them; it took up to ten years to master its handling and could fire up to ten arrows per minute at over three hundred meters.A computer analysis conducted by the Warsaw University of Technology in 2017 showed that bodkin-tipped arrows could penetrate typical plate armor of the time at two hundred and twenty-five meters. The depth of penetration was shallow at that distance, but increased at shorter distances or if the armor was of poor quality. Contemporary sources frequently mention armor-piercing arrows. The archers carried a quiver of twenty-four arrows, but during the morning of the battle, each received two more quivers, giving seventy-two arrows per archer, enough only for about fifteen minutes of combat firing at maximum speed, although the rate of fire would slow as the battle progressed. It is believed that a regular supply of shells came from the rear wagons and that the archers also ventured forward during lulls in the fighting to retrieve arrows. Modern historians estimate that as many as half a million arrows may have been fired during the Battle of Crécy.
The English army was also equipped with several types of firearms, although it is unknown how many there may have been: small pistols that fired lead balls; rifadoquins that fired metal arrows or clusters of shrapnel; and bombards, an early type of cannon that fired metal balls eighty or ninety millimeters in diameter. Contemporary accounts and modern historians differ on what types and how many of these weapons were present at Crécy, but several iron balls that may have been bombard ammunition have since been recovered at the battle site.
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French Army
There is even less certainty about the exact size of the French army because the financial records of the Crécy campaign were lost, although there is consensus that it was substantially larger than the English. Contemporary chroniclers note it as extremely large for the time and estimate its size at between seventy-two and one hundred and twenty thousand men. The numbers of mounted men-at-arms range from twelve thousand to twenty thousand. One Italian chronicler stated that there were as many as one hundred thousand cavalrymen (men-at-arms), twelve thousand infantrymen, and five thousand crossbowmen in the battle. Contemporary chroniclers indicate that the crossbowmen present numbered between two and twenty thousand.
Historians consider these numbers exaggerated and unrealistic, based on the preserved war treasury records of 1340, six years before the battle. Clifford Rogers calculates that “the French army was at least twice as large as the According to modern estimates, eight thousand men-at-arms formed the core of the French army, supported by between two and six thousand mercenary crossbowmen recruited mainly from the trading town of Genoa, and a “large, though undetermined, number of peons.” It is uncertain how many infantrymen, militiamen, and levy conscripts of varying degrees of equipment and training participated in the battle, but it is certain that they alone outnumbered the English army.
The French men-at-arms were similarly equipped to the English, mounted on completely unhorsed horses and carried wooden lances, usually of ash, with an iron crest and about four meters long. Many of the men-at-arms in the French army were foreigners; some joined individually out of sheer spirit of adventure and the handsome pay offered, others belonged to contingents contributed by Philip”s allies: three kings, a prince-bishop, a duke and three counts led the hosts from non-French territories.
The French armies had been increasing their number of crossbowmen since the enthronement of Philip, but as there were few archers in France, they were usually recruited abroad, mainly in the Italian republic of Genoa. They were professional crossbowmen who could fire their weapon approximately twice a minute and in battle were protected from enemy projectiles with a pavé, which was a very large shield with its own bearers that could protect up to three crossbowmen.
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Initial deployments
Edward deployed his army in a carefully selected location, facing southeast on a sloping hillside, dotted with scrub and terraces, at Crécy-en-Ponthieu, a territory he had inherited from his mother and which many Englishmen knew. Indeed, it has been suggested that this location had long been considered a suitable site for a battle. The left flank reached as far as the village of Wadicourt, while the right was protected by Crécy itself and beyond by the Maye River, making it difficult for the French to outflank them. The position had a clear route of retreat in case the English were defeated or put under intolerable pressure. While waiting to be overtaken, the English dug ditches in front of their positions, intending to disrupt the attacking cavalry, and placed several primitive firearms. Edward wished to provoke the French into launching a cavalry charge uphill against his solid infantry formations, backed by Welsh spearmen and flanked by archers. The army had been in position since dawn, so it was rested and well fed, giving it an advantage over the French, who did not rest before the battle. The victory at the ford of the Somme gained two days earlier over a large French detachment made the English troops emboldened by the impending battle.
The English army was deployed in three divisions, or “battles,” with two in front and one in reserve. Edward”s son, the Prince of Wales, assisted by the Earl of Warwick, led the largest of the front line battles, while the other was commanded by the Earls of Northampton and Suffolk, positioned to the left of the Prince of Wales. The king led the reserve battle. Each division was composed of men-at-arms in the center, all on foot, with ranks of spearmen immediately behind them, archers on each flank, hostlers in front, and many archers concealed among the trees or lying in the wheat fields. The baggage train was placed to the rear of the army, where it was surrounded and fortified, to serve as a stable for the horses, as a defense against any possible attack from the rear, and as a rallying point in case of defeat.
French scouts, advancing north from Abbeville, sighted the English around noon on August 26. Crossbowmen, led by Antonio Doria and Carlo Grimaldi, formed the French vanguard, followed by a large battle of armed men led by Count Charles d”Alenzon, brother of Philip, and the blind King John of Bohemia. The following battle was under the command of Duke Rudolph of Lorraine and Count Louis of Blois, while King Philip commanded the rearguard. When it became known that the English had stopped to fight, the French contingents pressed the pace, competing with each other to get to the front of the column. The Italians remained in the vanguard, the mounted men-at-arms left behind the infantry and wagons that accompanied them, but discipline was lost as the French noted the absence of their constable, who was normally responsible for organizing and leading the army, but who had been captured at Caen. Once they halted, they were overtaken by the infantrymen who were slowly arriving from Abbeville and joining Philip”s battle.
A council of war was held after reconnoitering the English position at which the French commanders, confident of victory, advised attacking the next day.The army was tired after a nineteen kilometer march and needed to reorganize in order to attack in force.It was also known that the Count of Savoy, with over five hundred men-at-arms, was advancing to join the French and was nearby; in fact, he would intercept some of the French survivors the day after the battle.Despite this advice, the French attacked that same evening. It is unclear from contemporary sources whether this was a deliberate choice by King Philip or whether many of the French knights continued to advance and eventually triggered the battle despite royal plans to wait until the next day. Philip”s plan was to use the long-range arrows of his crossbowmen to decimate the enemy infantry, break their formations and instill discouragement, in order to allow the accompanying mounted men-at-arms to then penetrate their ranks and defeat them. Modern historians generally consider this to be an appropriate strategy, which had led to victory on other occasions.
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Duel of archers
The French army advanced late in the afternoon, displaying its sacred battle banner, the oriflama, indicating that no prisoners would be taken. As it advanced, a sudden storm broke out over the place, so the English archers dismounted the bowstrings to prevent them from loosening; the Genoese crossbowmen did not need to take these precautions, as the crossbow strings were made of leather. The crossbowmen engaged the English archers in an archery duel, but were clearly defeated by the latter, whose rate of fire was more than three times greater than theirs. The crossbowmen also fought without their protective paveses, which were still with the French baggage, as was the reserve ammunition. The mud also hindered the reloading of the crossbows, as they needed to press the stirrups against the muddy ground, which reduced their rate of fire. The Italians were quickly defeated and fled because they were aware of their vulnerability without the paveses, so perhaps they made only a token effort to appear to be fighting. Modern historians do not agree on the number of casualties they suffered, but they must have been very few because some contemporary sources venture that perhaps they did not even fire and the most recent specialized study concludes that they fired rashly perhaps twice, after which they retreated without actually disputing with the English archers.
The knights and nobles following them in Alenzon”s division, hampered by the defeated mercenary crossbowmen, attacked them as they retreated. According to most contemporary accounts, the crossbowmen were considered cowards at best and probably traitors, so many of them were killed by the French. The clash of the retreating Genoese with the advancing French cavalry threw the French battle into disarray as the English archers continued to fire on the mass of enemy troops. Adding to the confusion was the firing of English bombards, although contemporary chronicles differ as to whether they inflicted significant casualties.
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Cavalry charges
The battle of Alenzon immediately launched a cavalry charge, which was disorganized by its improvised nature, by having to fight its way through the fleeing Italians, by the muddy ground, by having to charge uphill, and by the ditches dug by the English. The heavy and effective barrages of the English archers weakened the charge and caused many casualties. The heavy and effective volleys of the English archers weakened the onslaught and caused many casualties. It is likely that the archers did not fire until they had a reasonable chance of penetrating the French armor, that is, when the enemy horsemen were at approximately eighty yards or less. The French cavalrymen had some protection from their armor, but their mounts were completely unhorsed and fell dead or wounded in large numbers, throwing or trapping their riders and causing the following ranks to swerve to avoid them, creating even greater disorder. The wounded horses fled down the hillside in panic. By the time the French charge reached the tight formation of English men-at-arms and spearmen it had lost much of its momentum.
A contemporary described the melee that ensued as “deadly, merciless, cruel and most horrible.” Men-at-arms who lost their footing, or were thrown by wounded horses, were trampled, crushed by the fall of their mounts and other bodies and suffocated in the mud. Alenzon was among the dead and his attack was repulsed. The English infantry advanced to finish off the wounded French, plunder the corpses and recover arrows. Some sources say that Edward had given orders that, contrary to custom, no prisoners were to be taken; outnumbered as he was, he did not want to lose soldiers by escorting and guarding the captives. In any case, there is no record of any prisoners being taken until the following day, after the battle.
The new French cavalry formations were disposed at the foot of the hill and repeated the charge of Alenzon, but suffered the same problems as that one, with the additional disadvantage that the ground over which they advanced was littered with dead and wounded horses and men. Ayton and Preston describe “long mounds of battle horses and fallen men…. which posed significant added difficulties facing the new formations… as they tried to approach the English position”. which posed significant added difficulties facing the new formations … as they tried to close in on the English position.” Nevertheless, they charged again, though in such a disorderly manner that again they were unable to penetrate the English formation and a prolonged melee ensued in which the Prince of Wales himself is said to have fallen to his knees. A modern historian has described the fighting as “horrible carnage.” Edward sent a detachment from his reserve battle to secure victory; the French were repulsed a second time, but returned to the attack. The English ranks had been decimated by repeated enemy assaults, but men from the rear advanced to fill the gaps.
There is no consensus on the number of times the French charged, but it is known that they continued until late at night, when darkness further disordered their attacks. All had the same result: fierce fighting followed by retreat. In one of the onslaughts, the Count of Blois ordered his men to dismount and made them advance on foot; the Count”s corpse was later found on the battlefield. The French nobility stubbornly refused to give in; there was no lack of courage on either side. Famous is the cast of the blind King John of Bohemia, who tied his horse”s bridle to those of his attendants and together they charged the enemy in the twilight, but all were dismounted and killed. There are accounts of whole English divisions advancing to finish off the survivors of the disorderly French charges and then retreating in perfect order to their original positions.
King Philip himself was caught up in the fighting: he was killed by two horses he was riding and had an arrow shot through his jaw. The bearer of the flame was a prime target for the English archers; he was seen to fall, but survived after leaving the sacred banner in the hands of the enemy. Finally, Philip left the battlefield, although it is not clear why. It was almost midnight and the battle was winding down; most of the French army was leaving the battlefield in disarray. The English spent the night where they had fought. The next morning considerable French forces were still arriving on the battlefield and were attacked by the English men-at-arms, now on horseback, and pursued for a long distance. French casualties were in the thousands, the English pulled a few wounded or dazed Frenchmen from among the masses of corpses and took them prisoner.
The casualties in the battle were clearly unequal. All contemporary sources agree that English casualties were very low. It was even said that English deaths were limited to three or four men-at-arms and a few more among the rest of the infantry: a total of forty casualties, according to a post-battle tally. Some modern historians have claimed that this figure is too low and that English casualties must have been around three hundred. To date, only two Englishmen killed in the battle have been identified; two other English cavalrymen were taken prisoner, although it is not clear at what time they were taken prisoner.
Similarly, all sources of the time consider the French casualties to have been very high. According to a count made by the English heralds after the battle, the bodies of 1542 men-at-arms of the French nobility were found, plus probably several hundred from the subsequent pursuit. The English recovered more than two thousand two hundred heraldic shields from the battlefield as spoils of war. Sumption calls the total French casualties “catastrophic,” and Ayton refers to the “extraordinarily heavy casualties suffered by the French” and “overwhelming casualties.” The chronicler Geoffrey le Baker estimated, plausibly according to modern historians, that four thousand French knights were killed in the battle. Among the known dead were two kings, nine princes, ten counts, a duke, an archbishop and a bishop. According to Ayton, the huge French casualties can also be attributed to the ideals of medieval chivalry, according to which nobles must have preferred to die in battle rather than flee the field dishonorably, especially in the sight of other knights.
There are no reliable figures for French infantry casualties, although it is also considered that they were also large, Jean Le Bel estimated them at fifteen to sixteen thousand. Jean Le Bel estimated them between fifteen and sixteen thousand. Jean Froissart wrote that the French army lost a total of thirty thousand men, between dead and captured. The modern historian Alfred Burne ventures that there were ten thousand casualties in the infantry – although he admits that this figure is “a pure supposition” – and a total of twelve thousand French dead.
Clifford Rogers describes the outcome of the battle as “a total victory for the English,” and Ayton as “unprecedented” and “a devastating military humiliation.” Sumption considers it “a political catastrophe for the French Crown.” The battle was reported to the Parliament of England on September 13 in enthusiastic terms, as a sign of divine favor and justification for the enormous cost of the war to date. A contemporary chronicler opined, “the French were destroyed by rashness and disorganization.” Rogers writes that, among other factors, the English “benefited from superior organization, cohesion, and leadership” and from “the indiscipline of the French.” According to Ayton, “England”s international reputation as a military power was forged in a hard night”s fighting.”
Edward ended the campaign in France by laying siege to Calais, which fell after eleven months, partly because the Battle of Crécy had nullified the French army”s ability to relieve the city. The conquest gave the English a trading port in northern France, which they retained for two hundred years. The battle made clear the effectiveness of the longbow as a dominant weapon on the battlefields of western Europe. Many English and Welsh archers served as mercenaries in Italy and some served as far from their homelands as Hungary. Modern historian Joseph Dahmus includes the Battle of Crécy in his Seven Decisive Battles of the Middle Ages.
Sources
