Crécy-Wadicourt line nor parallel to it. It is impossible to fix upon it,
with any definition, a true crest. The slope undulates very gradually into
the general level of the plateau, and is so formed that the Val aux Clercs
is funnel-shaped, much wider at the mouth on the Maye than towards its
upper end.
The depression, therefore, which was the theatre of the action, is in the
main V-shaped, and its mouth is a full mile in breadth, while its last
faint upper portion is not half that width.
Such, in detail, is the field of Crécy.
I have attempted in the cut opposite p. 91 to express graphically its main
features as they would appear upon a model carved in wood and plotted to
show the actual relief of the soil.
I will conclude by pointing out to the English reader a curious parallel.
The field of Crécy has many analogies to the field of Waterloo. In both
cases two opposing ridges roughly determine the general plan. In both a
depression, double and complex in the modern, single in the medieval,
instance, lies between the two lines. That of Crécy, as was suitable for a
day in which no missiles of long range were available, is somewhat more
marked and affords somewhat more of an obstacle to the offensive than that
of Waterloo. In both the French formed the attacking force and in both the
defensive position was chosen with singular mastery. Indeed, an eye for a
defensive position marks Edward's plan most strongly, and is, quite apart
from the successful result of his action, his best title to repute in
military history.
* * * * *
At the close of this section the plainest duty of an historian, as
well as the satisfaction of common humour, compels me to allude to a
characteristic production of the University of Oxford. There has
proceeded from this university a school-book, perhaps the most
universally used in the public schools of this country, known as
_Bright's History of England_. I was myself brought up on it. It is
taken, I suppose (like much other Oxford matter), as something
hall-marked and official. This text-book has upon page 226 of its
first volume a full-page map of the Battle of Crécy. It is fair to
say that such a production could not have proceeded, I do not say
from any university upon the Continent of Europe, but from the
humblest schoolmaster in a French, Swiss, or German village. The
features marked upon it are wholly and unreservedly imaginary. There
is not even the pretence of a remote similarity between this
grotesque thing and the terrain of the famous battle: it is a pure
invention. It is almost impossible to express in words the difference
between this product of fancy, and even the most inaccurate map
sketched from memory, or the merest jottings set down by someone who
had no more to guide him than some vague recollection of an account
of the battle. There is nothing in it bearing the remotest
resemblance to any hill, river, road, wood, village, or point of the
compass concerned with the field of Crécy, and to this astonishing
abortion is modestly added in the left-hand bottom corner, "From
Sprüner." I have not by me as I write Sprüner's collection of
historical maps which were given us at the University, but if that
eminent authority was the model for such a masterpiece, it is a
sufficient commentary upon the rest of his work. I _have_ before me
as I write the flabbergasting plan in _Bright's History_ which I have
treasured ever since my boyhood, and I trust that this note may be
read by many who still believe that the function of our universities
is to train the governing class of the nation, not so much in
learning as in "character."
Contrast the excellent and accurate little map in the first-rate
manual which Mr Barnard published twelve years ago from the
Clarendon Press. The whole of this book is to be most highly
recommended. I believe that this map, the only doubtful features of
which are the angular formation of the English Archers and the
concentration of the French rear upon the Roman road, is from the
pencil of Mr Oman.
V
THE ACTION
King Edward, upon that Saturday morning before he had yet caught sight of
the French, of whose advance his scouts informed him, rode on a little
horse slowly up and down the ranks encouraging his army, as it sat and lay
at rest, with shield and helm and bow upon the grass before each man,
along the crest of the slight hill.
In his hand the King bore a white wand and no weapon, and this visitation
of his lasted until nearly ten o'clock. His last orders were that all his
men should eat and drink heartily, and he himself conveyed that order to
his own division, which lay behind the main line. He had organised the
defence upon a very simple pattern.
That battalion which was called the First Battalion consisted of 1200
men-at-arms, that is, fully armoured knights upon horseback, with 4000
Archers and 4000 Welshmen. They occupied that turn or shoulder of the
slope which runs round from the town of Crécy itself into the beginning
of the Val aux Clercs, and were under the nominal command of the lad the
Prince of Wales. But at his side the real orderers of that force were
Warwick and Oxford. Such was the English right.
Next, in the centre, and back from the first battalion, was the line of
English Archers. It was very carefully organised, with the object of a
purely defensive action. Small pits were dug before each man's station,
and this infantry was arranged in "harrow" formation, much as trees are
planted in an orchard in _quincunx_, so that any five of them formed a
figure somewhat like the five in a pack of cards. It is evident that this
formation, if the men were sufficiently dispersed, as they were, gave the
freest play to their missiles, all of which could be shot through the
intervals; and when we remember the rate of fire, three to one of the
cross-bow, we shall understand how formidable was this infantry, and how
well able it was to break any cavalry charge prepared by nothing more than
the shots of the Genoese. All the tradition and sentiment of medieval
warfare gave to the mounted knight the glory of battle, but, as I shall
have occasion to remark in the sequel, the great feature of Crécy was the
presence of an ordered, highly trained infantry, expected to await, and
capable of awaiting, a rush of horse until that cavalry should receive at,
say, fifty to eighty yards the whole weight of a furious and sustained
discharge of missiles. Beyond the Archers, some 3000 in number at this
point, were 1200 mounted knights, who, together with the Archers at the
centre, were under the command of Northampton.
There may have been a certain number of Archers to the left again of these
knights, but, at any rate, Northampton's command covered the rest of the
ridge and reposed upon Wadicourt. Here, lest it should be turned, the left
flank of the English line was protected by a park of wagons drawn up close
together, vehicles taken from such of the train as had been saved from the
French attack upon the rearguard at the ford two days before.
The remainder of the wagons, provisions, and impedimenta were drawn up in
the rear near the wood, and in front of them and between them and the
defensive line upon the ridge was a strong reserve of over 10,000 men
under Edward himself. Taking no account of non-combatants, we must reckon
Archers, armoured men and spear-men together at perhaps 25,000 men, and
certainly not more than 30,000; but we must remember, as I said upon a
former page, that every Archer was served by aides, that a man-at-arms
needed a squire, and that drivers and domestics of various kinds, and many
recruits from Normandy, swelled the host.
The large force against which this defensive was drawn up has been
variously estimated. Its dispersion over the countryside, the lack of any
cohesive command, the absence of all precise figures, the considerable
bodies of wholly untrained country folk who were straggling up behind the
army, make an estimate of the actual forces engaged on the French side
extremely difficult. We do not know how many Germans, Luxemburgians, and
others had been brought up with the feudal levy. The rough guess of
contemporaries at the whole numbers present and arriving during this
confused marshalling of Philip's host, calls it 100,000. A recent and very
careful English authority has estimated the enemy actually in line at
60,000. If we say that Edward met forces more than double his own, but not
three times his own, we are as near the truth as we can hope to get. But
the right way to estimate the disproportion between the offensive and the
defensive upon this famous day is to contrast the fully armoured mounted
men of either side, and, further, to contrast
1. The trained infantry, armed with missile weapons.
2. The infantry, trained or untrained, armed only with spear, dagger, or
sword.
Upon such an analysis we get some such result as follows:--
Some 4000 fully armoured mounted men in Edward's command, of whom only
3000 or less were out of the reserve and in the line. Some 7000 Archers
actually in the defensive line, with a much smaller number (unknown) in
the reserve. Add 4000 Spearmen, for the most part Welsh. Against these on
the offensive you may set, at the very least, quite four times their
number of fully mounted armoured men and probably six times their number,
or even more. As against the English Archers, we must count for the
missile arm upon the French side somewhat less. The only contemporary
authority, Villani, who gives us any exact figures, names 6000 as their
number.
When we come to the few trained non-missile infantry of the English
forces--some 4000 in the line, not counting the reserve,--and contrast
them with the rabble of untrained and scattered French countrymen, most
of whom were still coming up in the rear and did not take part in the
action (save to suffer slaughter in the darkness after it was over), we
can take any multiple we choose. They may have been five, six or eight
times as numerous as the Welshmen with whom they did not come into contact
at all.
It will be seen from the above that the real point of the battle, and that
which decided it, was the power of the trained missile infantry of Edward
(1) to await a charge of horse in no matter what numerical superiority it
might arrive, confident that they could always check it before it reached
their line or broke it; and inspired by that confidence, because (2) the
only missile infantry that could be brought against them to prepare such a
cavalry charge was armed with a weapon which delivered only one shot to
their three. That was the deciding element of the Battle of Crécy: the
power of the long-bow to stop horse upon any front equivalent to the front
of the Archers, and the confidence of the bowman in that power.
* * * * *
The action opened regularly enough with the advance of the French missile
infantry, the Genoese mercenaries, at the hour, as I have said, of about
five o'clock. They proceeded down the slight slope into the Val aux
Clercs, followed at a foot's pace by a strong body of the first battalion
of the French mounted knights under Alençon.
Advancing thus deployed, a body of 6000 men had difficulty in keeping its
line, a thing essential to the simultaneous effect of short-range weapons.
Twice they were halted to correct their alignment, and though perhaps at
the second halt they were at the lowest point of the valley and just in
extreme range of the English arrows from the height above, those arrows
did not yet come. The English had been ordered to reserve their fire. They
began to climb the opposing slope, shouting as was their custom, and after
a third halt had been called, and a third strict alignment made so near to
the English front as to be certainly in range for their cross-bows, the
order to shoot was given. With the first flight of the Genoese bolts, the
English Archers took each man his step forward and began pouring in that
terrible fire, sustained, accurate, and rapid, to which they were so
admirably trained, and of which hitherto, save in the fight at the ford,
no example had been given in continental warfare.
Under that murderous and unceasing rain of missiles the Italian
mercenaries, whose weapon compelled them to a complicated process of
winding and ratcheting and laying, very ill-suited to such a strain, fell
into disorder. A sufficient proportion of them broke, and their confusion
at once angered and churned up the great body of mounted French knights,
which awaited impatiently immediately behind their line. They were ridden
down in the eagerness of these armoured horsemen to retrieve this first
check by a charge, and Alençon's men spurred hard (badly hampered by that
obstacle of their own men fallen into confusion before them) upon the
English right and the Prince of Wales's battalion. Some of them got home,
especially those who found themselves opposite the most advanced section
of the Prince of Wales's command, where it stood thrust forward in a
semicircle upon the shoulder and last slopes of the hill. The boy himself
was unhorsed, and for a moment the pressure was severe.[15] But the effect
of the arrow fire upon all the rest of the charging line told heavily. It
never got home. Indeed, it must have been apparent to Edward at that
moment that for all the fixed tradition of chivalry and that overwhelming
atmosphere of military religion which in every age, according to its
traditions, confuses the soldier, had he kept all his men at arms in
reserve and put Archers only in the front line, they would have sufficed
to win his battle.
There stands upon the Crécy end of the ridge a great mound to this day. It
is the foundation of an old stone windmill which stood there for
centuries, and which has been shamefully pulled down within living memory.
From that mill it was that Edward watched the whole action proceeding upon
the slope beneath him. He saw the head of the French charge get home but
its extended line wavering, checked, and broken up on the Val aux Clercs
as a continuous rain of arrows poured in. He saw all the front ranks of
horses broken: the animals lashing out or fallen stampeding rearward,
mounted or riderless: the heavily armoured knights fallen helpless and
trampled, the whole thing a vast confusion.
It was near six o'clock. The westering sun was within an hour of its
setting, and shone right up the vale, coming aslant upon the burnished
armour of the charge. Had this kind of warfare already established a
tradition, and had men learned by experience what unshaken infantry could
do against horse, it would already have been apparent that the action was
decided. But there was no such experience and no such knowledge. Over the
long slopes of open field which fronted the English ridge, line after line
of knights were coming forward in successive waves, as though mere weight
of horses and men could win home in spite of the increasing welter of
flying, dead, and maddened mounts, and of fallen men and iron that now
lined all the front with a belt of obstacle more formidable than earth or
wall. And of those, such few as could struggle through to within range
might hope to escape the deadly and now converging fire which struck horse
after horse as the foot of the ridge was reached. By gaps in the deadly
confusion of the stampede and the corpses, round to their right further
and further up the valley (upon their left the marshes of the Maye forbade
a turning movement), the French charges followed and spread. A dozen or
more were counted, and each as it came met the missile defence and was
broken, with no counter missile offensive to tame that fire.
The sun was setting, but one effort was made which should have been made
far earlier in the short crisis. It was an effort of the French right to
turn the English left by Wadicourt.
Due, we may imagine, to no regular order, an occasion seized upon by some
one commander who saw his chance, a charge of horse was led right up to
that end of the English line, the barricade of wagons prevented its
getting home, and, though the struggle was violent, the obstacle was never
pierced or overcome. Well after sunset, and as the light was fading, the
King of France himself led a great body to the centre, and seems to have
come into range of the arrows, but he, no more than any of his lieges,
could force horse against steady infantry and an unremitting fire. The
darkness came, the late moon rose, and still were desultory and sporadic
charges continued, haphazard and blindly. They had not even a hazard of
success. These last efforts of the failing battle were repelled with ease,
but even up to midnight the final pulses of the fight throbbed, with
lesser and lesser pulsations; until after these seven hours of it--most of
it by darkness, and all the while the line of Archers standing unbroken,
and all the while supplied with their unexhausted ammunition, and finding
strength to draw and to discharge--the thing was over.
Throughout that night great bodies of disordered peasantry, half-armed,
the militia of the Communes, fled or wandered aimlessly southward over the
bare, rolling land. The mounted knights had ridden away from a field where
all was utterly lost, and the English line broke up to move forward by the
light of lanterns over the face of the countryside, to despatch or to
capture the wounded, to loot, to search for the faces and the ensigns of
the greater dead. But in that darkness the magnitude of the result was not
seen. The English army seems to have guessed the issue mainly by the dying
down of the noise, and the ceasing of the cries of men rallying to their
lords' banners.
This was the end of the Battle of Crécy, in the night of Saturday the 26th
of August, 1346.
Early upon the Sunday morning, Edward's forces stood to arms again, not
knowing whether even yet a new attack might not be made. Mist covered all
the landscape, through which fog, dimly, bodies of men seemed to be
advancing upon them from the south. They were reinforcements of Philip's
come up in ignorance of what had passed the day before, or at any rate
not appreciating how decisive the day had been. Five hundred knights
riding out easily dispersed them. Further bodies straggling up in similar
fashion were dealt with in detail, and all that morning the English
soldiers going at large over the fields found and put to the sword lost
fragments of militia, came, as they tracked the flight, upon dead and
wounded lords, and cut off bewildered remnants, making they knew not
whither over the land.
The total French losses will never be known. The legend of disaster calls
them now ten, now twenty thousand. Of the mounted and armoured men of rank
the heralds made a precise account, and returned a list to King Edward of
1542 fallen and dead upon the front of the battle and in the first fields
of the retreat. To these due sepulchre was given. The mass of the fallen
were buried in common trenches, marks of which may be seen to this day;
and it is said that fires were lit to rid the ground of the dead.
The English loss was wholly insignificant. Its exact amount, like that of
its enemy, we cannot tell, because a list of but two knights, one squire,
and forty of the rest, not counting a few Welsh, is all that we are
given. But, even if this total (which hardly corresponds to the fierce
mêlée at the beginning of the action on the right) be below the true
number, we may be certain that that number was very small indeed. The line
was never pierced; the English fight was wholly defensive, and a defensive
maintained at range against troops which disposed, after the first rout of
the Genoese, of no missiles upon their side.
Upon the Monday morning, the 28th of August, the host set forth upon its
northern march, quite free now from any danger of pursuit. By the first
days of September it had sat down before Calais. All winter and all the
succeeding summer the blockade continued, and upon the 4th of August 1347,
nearly a year after Crécy, the town was taken and the lasting fruit of
that engagement was garnered. Calais remained an English bastion upon the
Continent for more than two hundred years.
Footnotes:
[1] We have this upon the evidence of a contemporary, Villani. It has, of
course, been denied by our modern academic authorities, but without
evidence.
[2] The theatrical character which attaches to warfare through the
fourteenth century appears at this very outset of the campaign. Edward
knighted the Black Prince and sundry other commanders on a hill
overlooking the fleet and the harbour just before the main body
disembarked. The Black Prince had already been knighted, and the ceremony
was mere parade.
[3] He did _not_ go to Rouen, or near it, as the map in Mr Fortescue's
work (vol. i. p. 37) presumes. Rouen was, he found, too strongly held.
There is no time for the big loop of twenty miles which Mr Fortescue
introduces, and no evidence for it.
[4] This is not N. D. de Vaudreuil, as Professor Thompson suggests, but St
Cyr just beyond where the bridge is.
[5] This point has also proved puzzling. Thus Professor Thompson calls it
"difficult to find." What the clerk heard and set down was the peasants'
term "L'Angreville."
[6] This, as Professor Thompson rightly says, is not on the modern maps.
It stood just above _Nezel_ near the modern Chateau between that village
and Falaise or "The Cliff."
[7] So I read the meaningless rigmarole of the Clerk of the Kitchen. But I
may be wrong. Professor Thompson inclines to Ecquevilly, a mile or two
further on.
[8] Or _six_, if we read Ecquevilly. The main army halted at Flins.
[9] The low tide after the full moon occurred on that 24th of August at
about half past-six o'clock in the open sea and nearer eight o'clock in
the estuary, or even later; for we must allow quite seven hours' ebb to
five hours' flow in that funnel in its old unreclaimed state.
[10] _Antiq. de Pic._, vol. iii. pp. 131, etc.
[11] The parish boundaries are not absolutely straight, as, after the
fashion of modern French communal boundaries, they follow the corners of
the oblong strips of peasant cultivation, but the aggregate of straight
lines, all in one continuous direction, marks a quite unmistakable
trajectory.
[12] The traveller going by rail to-day from Paris to Calais or Boulogne,
may note at the second station after Abbeville a wood upon the heights to
his right, and upon his left the reclaimed valley of the Somme. The next
station he passes is that of Port, with the church of the village upon his
right as he leaves it, and the embankment which he sees crossing the
valley floor upon his left, a mile further on, marks the passage by which
Edward III. and his army forced the then broad estuary of the river.
[13] See p. 45.
[14] Not to be confounded with the other Noyelles upon the Somme, ten
miles away.
[15] It was at this moment that news was brought to King Edward of his
son's peril, and that he replied "Let the child win his spurs"--sending
the messenger back empty, but having care immediately afterwards to
despatch reinforcement.