The Handy Military History Answer Book. Samuel Willard Crompton
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and that they often succeeded.
Can any people, or set of peoples, really sustain the motivation to fight each other for a century?
No. There have to be breaks in the action and time for people to forget—or at least put from their minds—the mayhem and destruction of the last set of episodes. But England and France, which had long experienced uneasy relations, did go to war in 1334, and the conflict lasted—off and on—for more than one hundred years.
What was the proximate cause of the Hundred Years’ War?
King Edward III of England (ruled 1327–1377) claimed the throne of France because of the Salic Law, which declared that only male descendants and relatives could sit on the throne of Charlemagne. King Philip IV of France, best known as Philip the Fair, naturally disagreed, and the two kingdoms went to war in 1334. Neither side expected anything like what happened after that.
When the war began, France had a large advantage in population—about three to one—and resources. England, by contrast, had the better fleet and could therefore control the English Channel, deciding when and where to strike. The biggest surprises were in the area of military technology, however.
When did gunpowder first arrive in Christian Europe?
The precise date is unknown, but by the early fourteenth century some Europeans had experimented with gunpowder, and by about 1430, the first cannon were being forged. These were clumsy, heavy things, with almost no capacity for mobility; the sheer noise they created, however, could frighten a foe half to death. King Edward III of England brought a handful of ugly looking cannon to the Siege of Calais in 1336, but they did not succeed in battering down the walls. Cannon would have to wait nearly another century before becoming the “destroyers of castles.” The longbow, on the other hand, was primed and ready.
The Welsh pioneered the longbow, and the English adapted this new technology during the reign of King Edward I. As long as the archer was tall, the longbow was made of yew, an especially supple wood. Through long practice, a long bowman could release six arrows per minute, and the best of these marksmen were able to pierce the separation points between a knight’s armor. The longbow was costly to make and the practice sessions time consuming, but the weapon itself was extraordinarily light, and its ease of transportation made it the best weapon of the Hundred Years’ War.
When was the longbow first used?
It had been in use in the British Isles for many years, but the longbow first appeared in a European battlefield at Crecy in 1346. King Edward III invaded France and was set upon by a French force that outnumbered his own. In the Battle of Crecy, the English knights beat the French ones by a narrow margin, but it was the English commoners, using the longbow, who really won the day. Raining down arrows on their opponents, the longbow men then charged, and often caught, French knights either flat-footed or on their backs (because their horses had thrown them off). Captured knights were held for ransom, meaning that the English won a victory that was both tactical and monetary.
Edward III continued to the coast of what is now Belgium and besieged the city of Calais. He captured the city after a long siege and then returned to England. As far as Edward was concerned, the war was won. He did not realize that things were just beginning to warm up.
Why did the French fail to change their own tactics?
It is easy to poke fun at the French, who continued to believe that the armored knights would, eventually, simply ride over the peasants carrying longbows. It is important to remember that people are—in general—resistant to change and continue to believe that the method which worked in the past will do so again. The French, therefore, kept making excuses to themselves, blaming the rain on the day before the Battle of Crecy and the difficult terrain as reasons for their defeat. They simply could not fathom the painful fact that military technology had changed and that he who possessed the lighter weapon—the bow—would now prevail over heavier means of transport: the horse.
Illustration of Edward III defeating the French atCalais from Jean Froissart’s Chroniques, c. 1410.
There must have been more to this war than dynastic struggle, or else people would never have stayed with the conflict. Is that correct?
Yes. The dynastic conflict between the English and French was the initial reason for the Hundred Years’ War, but to sustain the bad feeling and desire for blood, there had to be more. By about 1350, England and France were locked in a struggle that was economic, social, and dynastic.
How severe did the Hundred Years’ War become?
The major armies were bad enough, but the mercenary forces that attended them were even worse. On both sides, the monarchs employed thousands of mercenary soldiers who preyed on the civilians. France suffered much the worst of this, as so much of the fighting was on its side of the English Channel.
By the 1370s, both England and France were on the verge of bankruptcy, and social disturbances began in earnest. In France, a rebellion known as the Jaquerie nearly toppled King Charles V; in England, the major disturbance came in the form of Wat Tyler’s Revolt. In both instances, the established order eventually prevailed, albeit at an enormous cost in money, arms, and men.
Did anyone see that the time had come to end this fratricidal conflict?
Various Popes mentioned the fact, and numerous churchmen waxed indignant about how the two nations should combine to fight the Ottoman Turks. England and France were locked in a life-or-death struggle, however, and things only became worse when Burgundy exerted all of its power on behalf of the former.
The dukes of Burgundy had long been uneasy subjects of the French crown. Many of their subjects identified with Germany, or the Holy Roman Empire. By the 1420s, Burgundy was firmly in the English camp, with disastrous results for France. The single worst day of the Hundred Years’ War had already come and gone, however.
Why did King Henry V (ruled 1413–1422) invade France in 1415?
He did so for all the usual reasons: to compel the French to come to terms and to extort treasure from the French nobles. Something about Henry V appealed to his men, however, and he was depicted as a hero in Shakespeare’s play of that name. Henry V was young and a risk taker. He came to France with fewer than 8,000 men, and after the Siege of Harfleur, his force was reduced to fewer than 5,000 troops. Rather than be evacuated by ships, however, Henry chose to march over land, across Northern France, to one of the Channel Ports.
The French knew all about their previous failures at Crecy, Poitiers, and elsewhere. What they never believed, however, was that the humble English longbow man could have caused all this destruction. In each case, the French argued that something else was the reason for their failure. Therefore, on hearing that Henry V was marching with a small army, King Charles VI (ruled 1380–1422) summoned all the noblemen of France and commanded them to strike the English while they were en route to Calais.
How did France lose the Battle of Agincourt?
Saint Crispin’s Day—October 25—dawned muggy and overcast, with rain showers threatening. This would have been the perfect time for the French to wait and slowly starve out the English. The French knights were impatient—to say the least—and their leader, the Constable of France, ordered an attack at around 9 A.M. Just then the skies opened up, making for terrible visibility and lots of mud.
The French attack progressed along a narrow front, too narrow, as it turned out. The English longbow men did not have to see special targets; they simply poured one volley after another into the mass of French knights. By the time a handful of knights got close to the English lines, their foes were ready for them: these were either killed or captured on the spot. The French made one last attempt, circling around to get at the English supply wagons, but this, too, was foiled. By noon, the French had pulled back, and the English were able to assess their victory, which, in every term