section, he will see that just as Edward had been under a necessity to
cross the Seine in the first part of his raid, he was now under a still
greater necessity of crossing the Somme. A force much larger than his own
was pressing him against that river into a sort of corner, and his only
chance of safety lay in reaching the Straits of Dover through the county
of Ponthieu, which lay beyond the stream. Every effort had been made to
press the march. The force appears to have been divided for this purpose
and to have marched in parallel columns, and the single case of marauding
(the burning of the Abbey of St Lucien outside Beauvais) had been punished
with the death of twenty men.
To turn and meet his pursuers (who were evidently in contact with him
through their scouts) would have meant, so long as he was on this side of
the Somme, no chance of retreat in case of defeat.
Every mile he went to the north the Somme valley, already a broad expanse
of marsh upon his flank, grew broader and more difficult. The decision,
therefore, which Edward took at this critical moment, at once perilous and
masterly, showed that rapid grasp of a situation which, for all his lack
of a general plan during this campaign, this great soldier could boast. In
the first place, he himself rides forward no less than twenty full miles
to the village of Acheux. He has behind him the whole army strung out in
separate bodies parallel to the Somme. Himself, from the head of that long
line of twenty miles, commands all that should be done along it. He next
orders separate bodies to approach the valley and seek a crossing, first,
if possible, up river, then, as they fail, lower and lower down, and each
to be ready as it is foiled at each bridge to fall back north in
concentration, and to group in gathering numbers further and further down
the stream, and near to his place at the head of the line, Acheux.
The whole thing is a fine piece of sudden decision, and is at once a
combination of the rapidity of the retreat and of the attempt to force the
river, in this the fourth week of August 1346, which so nearly brought
disaster to the English force.
Three days, the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, were taken up in this manoeuvre.
The English flung themselves successively against the bridges: Picquigny,
Long Pré, Pont Rémy. The hardest and first push was at Picquigny at the
beginning or southernmost of the effort. The body detached for that effort
was beaten back.
It was the same with the next blow lower down at Long Pré: the same lower
down still at Pont Rémy. At no bridge were the English successful.
Everywhere the valley was impassable to them, and as they attempted one
place after another down the stream with its broadening marshland and now
tidal water, to find a traverse seemed impossible.
At last, then, upon Wednesday the 23rd of August the whole host was
gathered, foiled, round its King at Acheux. He marched on a few miles to
BOISMONT, going on his way through Mons, and there, as it chanced, picking
up a prisoner who proved invaluable: for that prisoner betrayed the ford.
As the English army lay at Boismont that night of the 23rd, the broad
estuary of the Somme stretched to the north of them with no more bridges
across it, cut or uncut, and apparently no fate but a choice between a
desperate action against superior numbers (nor any retreat open) and
surrender.
Edward's only chance lay in the discovery across that mile of land
(flooded at high tide, and at low tide a morass) of some kind of ford.
Such a ford existed. With difficulty, but in the nick of time, it was
discovered and used; the French force defending it upon the further side
was overthrown, and the retreat and its dependent victory of Crécy were
made possible.
Edward had had good faith that "God and Our Lady, and St George would find
him a passage," and a passage he found.
The crossing of that ford and the advance to Crécy field must form the
matter of our next section, "The Preliminaries of the Action."
* * * * *
The reader will note that in the latter part of the above I have
wholly abandoned the more usual account of the last three days of the
retreat from Poissy to the Somme, and that the reconstruction I have
attempted includes several matters hitherto not suggested in any
recent history, and is in contradiction with the view which has
hitherto been most generally accepted.
The evidence upon which I rely for this description of the retreat on
Acheux and subsequently on Boismont will I hope be found set out in
detail in the number of the _English Historical Review_ for October
1912. Meanwhile, I owe it to my readers, who may use this book for
purposes of school or university work, to state briefly the way in
which the matter has hitherto been set forth, and my reason for
adopting this new version.
Most Froissart MSS., which have misled history in this regard, say
that King Edward was at _Oisemont_ upon the evening of the 23rd.
Lingard, the father of all modern English historical writing, and a
man whom every historian begins by reading (though very few go on by
acknowledging him), expanded this mere reference into a whole phrase,
and wrote that Edward "had the good fortune to capture the town of
Oisemont, and so find a night's lodging." A neglect of military
conditions, or of the map, or of both, has perpetuated the error.
Edward was never at Oisemont. The argument against it, and in favour
of _Boismont_, is dependent upon a number of converging proofs, which
I will very briefly recapitulate.
(1) The MSS. of Froissart are none of them original.
(2) They vary among themselves with regard to this particular word,
most of them giving "Oisemont," but one giving "Nysemont."
(3) Even where all the MSS. agree with regard to a place, and where
Froissart certainly mentioned it, he is wildly inaccurate, evidently
going by hearsay, and often by a doubtful memory: thus he has no
idea on which side of the Seine the town of Gisors stands, and he
calls the village of Fontaine a "strong town," etc.
(4) Even were he an accurate, he is not a contemporary authority. He
had to depend entirely upon older accounts which we can prove that he
misread, or did not read at all, but only heard spoken of, and very
often botched horribly.
(5) In this particular campaign he is particularly haphazard. Thus,
upon the all-important point of the order in which the various
crossings of the Somme were attempted, he gets them at sixes and
sevens, describing the first last and the last first. He was a man
always attending to picturesqueness of incident, and one who thought
exactitude very negligible.
Those are the five points which weaken any positive evidence which
Froissart may give. But it is the evidence independent of Froissart,
and of his accuracy or inaccuracy, which is so overwhelming.
(1) Oisemont lies actually ten miles _back_ from Abbeville upon the
line of the retreat. To occupy Oisemont was to incur a deliberate
running into that danger which it was all Edward's effort to avoid.
(2) We know, as a matter of fact, that Philip, the King of France,
was before the night of the 23rd abreast of Abbeville; a retreat upon
Oisemont would therefore have been physically impossible to Edward.
(3) Oisemont would have involved keeping in touch with bodies ten,
twelve, fifteen, and twenty miles distant, even if Oisemont had been
occupied for two days, whereas the only mention we have of that
occupation represents it as taking place on the 23rd.
These three points render it, as to two of them morally impossible,
as to one of them physically, that Edward could have been at Oisemont
upon that night. But they are negative: we have positive points which
clinch the whole matter. These are:--
(1) Edward marched with his _whole_ army to the ford or it could not
all have crossed, therefore it was concentrated before he marched.
The march was a very short one. Even Froissart says that "he started
at the break of day" and reached the ford "a little after sunrise."
It must also have been short because we know as a matter of positive
history that the soldiers who took that morning march waited some
time for the tide to ebb, _then_ fought a sharp and successful action
upon the northern bank of the river, and again on the same day
stormed certainly one and possibly two defended places: also that
their total march before the night, and beyond the river, was quite
ten miles, including the actions just mentioned.
(2) We also know that there was an assault on St Valery, which was
actually _twenty_ miles from Oisemont by the nearest roads!
(3) We know that the traitor was captured at Mons, which, if Edward
had been at Oisemont, would have meant that someone had not only
caught him at that great distance from Oisemont, but had brought him
back (a total ride of twenty-four miles) without previous knowledge
that he was capable of the valuable information he only gave later
and after offers.
(4) There is no contemporary mention of Oisemont, but we do
positively know from contemporary evidence that the King's household
was, and had been for three days, at Acheux.
Now all this combined is quite conclusive. Oisemont is impossible.
Boismont satisfies every part of the evidence. An hour's riding from
it permits the attack on St Valery. Mons, where the traitor comes
from, is only two miles off; the march from Boismont to the Ford is
just such an advance as would take the dawn and sunrise of a
day--whereas the advance from Oisemont, impossible for all those
other reasons, would involve fourteen to fifteen miles of marching,
and is utterly incompatible with the idea of two or possibly three
heavy fights, and the long march succeeding it.
One last piece of evidence would be conclusive even if we had not all
the rest. There is contemporary record of the Mayor of Abbeville
watching from the heights of Caubert Hill the English army streaming
northward to concentrate round the advanced position of the King.
From that height such an advance could be discerned crossing the
plateau which leads to Acheux, to Mons, and to Boismont. You could no
more see a concentration on Oisemont from it than you could see a
concentration on Greenwich from Camden Hill.
[Illustration: Sketch showing Estuary of the Somme at BLANCHETAQUE in
1346]
III
THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE BATTLE
The manoeuvres of the French and English armies preliminary to the
Battle of Crécy are so instructive upon many points, involved movements so
hazardous and so complex, gave rise to so sharp a series of engagements,
and form in general so large a part of our subject, that they merit a far
larger study than do the approaches to most battles.
They illustrate the comparative lack of thought-out plan which
characterised medieval warfare; they afford a contrast between the compact
and fairly well organised command of Edward III., and the chaotic host of
the King of France. They show the effect upon the military profession of a
time without maps and without any properly managed system of intelligence;
and, above all, they show the overwhelming part which chance plays in all
armed conflict between forces of the same civilisation and approximately
the same aptitudes.
The situation upon Wednesday the 23rd of August (at which point we
concluded the survey of Edward III.'s great raid through Normandy, and of
his retreat down the line of the Somme) is already known to the reader,
and will be the clearer if he will look at the map upon page 28.
Edward had made a very fine march indeed, not only averaging something
like twelve miles a day, or more, but arranging for expeditions to leave
the main host during the latter part of this rapid retreat, and attempt to
force, at various points, the passages of the River Somme. We have seen
that he was compelled, if possible, to force a passage because he would
otherwise find himself shut up between the Somme and the sea, with a much
superior force cutting him off to the south. In case of defeat he would
have no line of retreat, and even in case of success, unless that success
were overwhelming, he would find himself strategically stalemated, still
caught in a trap, and still doomed to await the next onslaught of the
enemy. We have further seen that with every mile that he proceeded towards
the sea his ability to cross the Somme decreased. The river runs through
a marshy valley which, even to-day, is a mass of ponds and water meadows,
and which then was a belt of marsh. It is bounded on either side by fairly
steep banks, rising to heights of 60, 70, and 100 feet, and inland to 150,
between which the flat swamped land grows broader and broader as one
approaches the sea. At Picquigny this level belt of swamp through which
the Somme twines is quite 500 yards across. At Long Pré it is nearer 800,
below Abbeville it is 1000, and at the point whence Edward overlooked it
when he was halted at bay on the evening of that 23rd of August, it is
well over 2000 yards in width and nearer 2500.
Boismont, a village climbing the southern bank of the estuary, was the
spot on which the King had gathered the army upon the evening of that
Wednesday, and, not a day's march behind him, the most advanced mounted
men of his pursuers, with the King of France among them, were camping. The
peril was extreme, and an issue from that peril as extremely doubtful.
It was hopeless for the army to attempt to retrace its steps to the upper
river. To have done so would have been to march with the flank of its
march exposed to an immediate advance of French forces, and almost
certainly to be caught in column; and Edward had already suffered such
repulses before Long Pré, Pont Rémy, and Picquigny as left him no hope for
success should he attempt these bridges again. His only chance was to
find, if it were possible, some practicable ford across the broad estuary
itself that lay before him.
The moon was within a few hours of the full that night, the highest of the
spring-tides was making--in the open sea they were at their full height of
25 feet, an hour before midnight,--and though where he would strike the
estuary he might hope for a tide more tardy, Edward had before him as he
watched, his only avenue of escape, a great flood that appeared to deny
him all access to the further shore.
Every effort was made to discover from local knowledge whether any passage
existed. The highest rewards were offered, in vain, for in all that
countryside a feeling which if not national was at least strongly opposed
to the invader, forbade treason, and the near presence of the French
King's great force was an active reminder of the punishment that would
attend it. Late in this period of suspense a guide was found.
A man of the name of Gobin Agache, who had been taken prisoner by the
army, was that guide. His was that "invaluable" capture which I mentioned
in the last section. He was a peasant of those parts, and a native of
Mons-en-Vimieux, through which the army had marched from Acheux to
Boismont. He yielded to temptation when all others had refused. He was
promised a hundred pieces of gold (say £500 of our money), his own
liberty, and that of twenty of his companions. For that price he sold
himself, and promised to discover to the King and to his army the only
practicable ford across the estuary.
Just at the end of the night the host set out and marched during the first
hours of the moonlit Wednesday morning along the old road which still
leads over the hills that separate Boismont from Saigneville and marked
the southern bank of the valley. The marshalling was long; the full
ordering of the force, now that it was all gathered together and marching
along one narrow way, inexpeditious; and the two miles that separated the
head of its column from the neighbouring village were not traversed by its
last units, nor was the whole body drawn up at the foot of the hills
against the water until the sun of that late August day was beginning to
rise, and to show more clearly the great sheet of flood-water and the
steep distant bank beyond it.
The place to which their guide had led them was the entry to the ford of
Blanchetaque, a name famous in the military history of this country.
Hidden beneath the waters which, though now ebbing strongly, were still
far too deep for any attempt at a crossing, ran the causeway. By it, upon
the faith of the traitor, they could trust to gaining the opposite shore.
As the racing ebb lowered more and more, the landward approaches of that
causeway appeared in a lengthening white belt pointing right across
towards the further bank, and assured them that they had not been
betrayed. It was built of firm marl in the midst of that grassy slime
which marks the edges of the Somme valley, and they had but to wait for
low water to be certain that they could make the passage. Beyond, upon the
northern shore which showed in a high, black band (for it was steep)
against the broadening day, they could distinguish a force that had been
gathered to oppose them.
It was mid-morning before the ebb was at its lowest,[9] and they could
begin to march "twelve abreast, and with the water no more than
knee-high," across the dwindled stream now at its lowermost of slack
water, and running near the further bank with a breadth not a fifth of
what it had been at the flood. But before proceeding further and
describing the assault shore, I would lay before my readers the process by
which I have established the exact locality of this famous ford. It has
been a matter of considerable historical debate. It is and will always
remain a matter of high historical interest, and this must be my excuse
for digressing upon the evidence which, I think it will be admitted,
finally establishes the exact trajectory of Blanchetaque.
The site of Blanchetaque is one which nature and art have combined to
render obscure: nature, because a ford when its purpose disappears and it
is no longer kept up, that is, an artificial ford, tends to disappear more
rapidly than any other monument; art, because the old estuary of the Somme
has of recent years been further and further reclaimed. It was, when I
first began studying this district, already banked across below Boismont,
and, if I am not mistaken, the great railway bridge right across the very
mouth of the river has, in the last few months, been made the boundary of
the reclaimed land.
Now, Blanchetaque was an artificial ford. We know this because there is no
marl formation near by, and could be none forming a narrow rib across the
deep alluvial mud of the estuary; the marl, then, can only have been
brought from some little distance. It is not only an artificial hardening
which we have to deal with, but one in the midst of a tidal estuary where
a violent current swept the work for centuries. Finally, the cause for
keeping the ford in some sort of repair early disappeared in modern times
before the process of reclaiming the land of the estuary began. Numerous
modern bridges, coupled with the great development of modern roads,
permitted the crossing of the Somme at and below Abbeville: notably the
Bridge of Cambron. The railway, the growth of the tonnage of steamers, and
other causes, led to the decline of the little riverside town of
Port--formerly the secure head of marine navigation upon the river and
largely the cause that Blanchetaque was kept in repair.
Again, the reclamation of the land has been carried out with a French
thoroughness only too successful in destroying the contours of the old
river bed. In the sketch map on p. 60 I have indicated to the best of my
ability the channel of the river at low tide as it appears to have been
before reclamation began, but even this can barely be traced upon the
levelled, heightened, and now fruitful pastures.
It is all this which has made the exact emplacement of Blanchetaque so
difficult to ascertain, and has led to the controversies upon its site.
Now, if we will proceed to gather all forms of evidence, we shall find
that they converge upon one particular line of trajectory which in the end
we can regard as completely established.
We have in the first place (and most valuable of all, of course)
tradition. Local traditions luckily carefully gathered as late as
1840,[10] but the indications of the peasants pointing out the traditional
site of the then ruined way were, unfortunately, not marked on a map. What
_was_ done was to give an indication unfortunately not too precise, and to
leave it on record that the northern end of the ford was "from 1200 to
1500 metres below Port." This gives us a margin of possible error, not of
300 yards as might be supposed, but of more than double that distance, for
Port itself is 500 yards in length from east to west. We can be certain,
however, that so far as tradition goes we need not look more than a mile
below Port for the ford, nor less than say half a mile from its last
houses.
Fortunately, we have other convergent indications which can guide us with
greater precision.
We must remember that, apart from the bringing of merchandise over to the
neighbourhood of Port, the ford, which may, and most probably did, exist
before Port became of any importance, led all the central traffic of the
Vimieux country (which is the district on the left bank of the Somme)
towards the Straits of Dover and their principal port at Boulogne.
Now, the way from the right bank of the Somme to Boulogne is interrupted
by several streams, much the most marshy and broad of which is the Authie.
The Romans bridged the Authie at _Ad Pontes_ in the course of their great
Trunk Road to Britain, and any way which led from the lowest ford over the
Somme to Boulogne would have to join that great Trunk Road before or at
the bridge if it were to take advantage, as commerce would have to do, of
that sole passage of the very difficult and marshy Authie valley which can
nowhere be crossed save upon a causeway. I have in a former page remarked
upon the importance of Ad Pontes (the modern Ponches), and pointed out
that it gives the whole county its name of Ponthieu. We must expect,
therefore, any direct commercial way northward from the ford to make
directly for Ponches. To strike the great Trunk Road higher up would be to
go out of one's way; to strike it lower down would be to strike the Authie
Valley at an impassable point.
When an ancient way has disappeared, certain indications of its track,
especially as that track may be presumed to be direct, survive, and among
these are wayside tombs, parish boundaries, and mills or other places
which, for the conveyance of heavy merchandise, are placed near such a
road if possible. All these three kinds of indications are available in
this particular case. The medieval mill which was so important a monopoly
of the medieval community was not built in the most natural place for it,
on the summit of the hill just above Port, but some thousand yards and
more away down the river bank, and over against it is a group of tombs.
Moreover, between the two runs the long north-western boundary of the
parish or commune of Port which is prolonged in the boundary of the parish
of Sailly.[11] We have here, then, a convergence of proof which confirms
the vaguer traditional site, for the end of this line upon the river,
passing between the tombs and the old mill, strikes the bank within the
limits of distance from Port which were set down in the local notes
printed in 1840.
But there is more. The forming of successive embankments one below the
other for the gradual reclamation of land in the Somme estuary was not an
easy matter. They had to be strong to withstand a strong tide, and there
was no good bottom to be found in the deep mud of the valley floor. It is
a significant evidence of this difficulty that the embankments stand so
far apart, and that the last has had to take advantage of the
long-established work of the railway viaduct. It is therefore a legitimate
conjecture that the hard bottom afforded by the old Blanchetaque would be
made use of, and as a fact we find the principal embankment between Port
and the sea coinciding exactly with the line established by the tombs, the
parish boundaries, and the site of the mill.