THE GREAT WAR
"Ce voyons bien, qu'au temps present
La guerre si commune eprend,
Qu'a peine y a nul labourer
Lequel a son metier se prend:
Le pretre laist le sacrement, [laisse
Et le vilain le charruer,
Tous vont aux armes travailler.
Si Dieu ne pense a l'amender,
L'on peut douter prochainement
Que tout le mond doit reverser."
GOWER, "Mirour," 24097
Of all the causes that tended in Chaucer's time to modify the old ideals
of knighthood, none perhaps was more potent than the Hundred Years' War.
Unjust as it was on both sides--for the cause of Philippe de Valois cannot
be separated from certain inexcusable manoeuvres of his predecessors on
the French throne--it was the first thoroughly national war on so large a
scale since the institution of chivalry. No longer merely feudal levies,
but a whole people on either side is gradually involved in this struggle;
and its military lessons anticipate, to a certain extent, those of the
French Revolutionary Wars. Even in Froissart's narrative, the greatest
heroes of Crecy are the English archers; and the Welsh knifemen by their
side play a part undreamed of in earlier feudal warfare. "When the Genoese
were assembled together and began to approach, they made a great cry to
abash the Englishmen, but they stood still and stirred not for all that;
then the Genoese again the second time made another fell cry, and stept
forward a little, and the Englishmen removed not one foot; thirdly, again
they cried, and went forth till they came within shot; then they shot
fiercely with their cross-bows. Then the English archers stept forth one
pace and let fly their arrows so wholly together and so thick, that it
seemed snow.... And ever still the Englishmen shot whereas they saw
thickest press; the sharp arrows ran into the men of arms and into their
horses, and many fell, horse and men.... And also among the Englishmen
there were certain rascals that went afoot with great knives, and they
went in among the men of arms, and slew and murdered many as they lay on
the ground, both earls, barons, knights and squires, whereof the king of
England was after displeased, for he had rather they had been taken
prisoners."
Those "certain rascals" did not only kill certain knights, they killed
also the old idea of Knighthood. From that time forward the art of war,
which had so long been practised under the frequent restraint of certain
aristocratic conventions, took a great leap in the direction of modern
business methods. The people were concerned now; and they had grown, as
they are apt to grow, inconveniently in earnest. There is a peculiarly
living interest for modern England in the story of that army which at
Crecy won the first of a series of victories astounding to all
Christendom. Only a few months after Chaucer's unlucky campaign in France,
Petrarch had travelled across to Paris, and recorded his impressions in a
letter. "The English ... have overthrown the ancient glories of France by
victories so numerous and unexpected that this people, which formerly was
inferior to the miserable Scots, has now (not to speak of that lamentable
and undeserved fall of a great king which I cannot recall without a sigh)
so wasted with fire and sword the whole kingdom of France that I, when I
last crossed the country on business, could scarce believe it to be the
same land which I had seen before."[222] The events which so startled
Petrarch were indeed immediately attributable to the business qualities
and the ambitions of two English kings; but their ultimate cause lay far
deeper. During all the first stages of the war, in which the English
superiority was most marked, the conflict was practically between the
French feudal forces and the English national levies. While French kings
ignored the duty of every man to serve in defence of his own home, or
remembered it only as an excuse for extorting money instead of personal
service, Edward III. brought the vast latent forces of his whole kingdom,
and (what was perhaps even more important) its full business energies, to
bear against a chivalry which at its best had been unpractical in its
exclusiveness, and was now already decaying. "Edward I. and III. ... (and
this makes their reigns a decisive epoch in the history of the Middle
Ages, as well as in that of England) were the real creators of modern
infantry. We must not, however, ascribe the honour of this creation only
to the military genius of the two English Kings; they were driven to it by
necessity, the mother of invention. The device which they used is
essentially the same which has been employed in every age by countries of
small extent and therefore of scanty population, viz. compulsory military
service. Although the name of _conscription_ is obviously modern, the
thing itself is of ancient use among the very people who know least of it
nowadays; and it may be proved conclusively that Edward III., especially,
practised it on a great scale. The documentary evidence for this fact is
so plentiful that to draw up the briefest summary of it would be to write
a whole chapter--neither the least interesting nor the least novel, be it
said--of English history; and that is no part of my plan here." So wrote
Simeon Luce, the greatest French specialist on the period, thirty years
ago; but the point which he here makes so clearly has hardly yet been
fully grasped by English writers.[223] It may therefore be worth while to
bring forward here some specimens of the mass of evidence to which Luce
alludes. Compulsory service is, of course, prehistoric and universal; few
nations could have survived in the past unless all their citizens had been
ready to fight for them in case of need; and the decadence of imperial
Rome began with the time when her populace demanded to be fed at the
public expense, and defended by hired troops. In principle, therefore,
even 14th-century France recognized the liability of every citizen to
serve, while England had not only the principle but the practice. Her old
Fyrd, the Anglo-Saxon militia system, was reorganized by Henry II. and
again by Edward I. By the latter's "Statute of Winchester" every
able-bodied man was bound not only to possess arms on a scale
proportionate to his wealth, but also to learn their use. A fresh impulse
was given to this military training by Edward I., who learned from his
Welsh enemies that the longbow, already a well-known weapon among his own
subjects, was far superior in battle to the crossbow. Edward, therefore,
gradually set about training a large force of English archers. Falkirk
(1298) was the first important battle in which the archery was used in
scientific combination with cavalry; Bannockburn (1314) was the last in
which the English repeated the old blunder of relying on mounted knights
and men-at-arms, and allowing the infantry to act as a more or less
disordered mass. While Philippe de Valois was raising money by the
suicidal expedients of taxing bowstrings and ordaining general levies from
which every one was expected to redeem himself by a money fine, Edward
III. was giving the strictest orders that archery should take precedence
of all other sports in England, and that the country should furnish him
all the men he needed for his wars.[224] Of all the documents to which
Luce refers (and which are even more numerous than he could have guessed
thirty years ago) let us here glance at two or three which bring the whole
system visibly before us. In this matter, as in several others, the
clearest evidence is to be found among Mr. Hudson's invaluable gleanings
from the Norwich archives.[225] He has printed and analyzed a number of
documents which show the working of the militia system in the city between
1355 and 1370--that is, at a time when it is generally asserted that we
were conducting the French wars on the voluntary system. In these
documents we find that the Statute of Winchester was being worked quite as
strictly as we are entitled to expect of any medieval statute, and a great
deal more strictly than the average. The city did in fact provide, and
periodically review, an armed force equal in numbers to rather more than
one-tenth of its total population--a somewhat larger proportion, that is,
than would be furnished by the modern system of conscription on the
Continent. Many of these men, of course, turned out with no more than the
minimum club and knife; the next step was to add a sword or an axe to
these primitive weapons, and so on through the archers to the numerous
"half-armed men," who had in addition to their offensive weapons a plated
doublet with visor and iron gauntlets, and finally the "fully-armed," who
had in addition a shirt of mail under the doublet, a neck-piece and
arm-plates, and whose total equipment must have cost some L30 or L40 of
modern money. Mr. Hudson also notes that "it is plain that the Norwich
archers were many of them men of good standing."
Moreover, this small amount of compulsion was found in medieval England,
as in modern Switzerland, to stimulate rather than to repress the
volunteer energies of the nation. Not only did shooting become the
favourite national sport, but many of whom we might least have expected
such self-sacrifice came forward gladly to fight side by side with their
fellow-citizens for hearth and home. In 1346, when the Scots invaded
England under the misapprehension that none remained to defend the country
but "ploughmen and shepherds and feeble or broken-down chaplains," they
found among the powerful militia force which met them many parsons who
were neither feeble nor infirm. Crowds of priests were among those who
trooped out from Beverley and York, and other northern towns, to a victory
of which Englishmen have more real reason to be proud than of any other in
our early history. Marching with sword and quiver on their thigh and the
good six-foot bow under their arm, they took off shoes and stockings at
the town gates and started barefoot, with chants and litanies, upon that
righteous campaign. In 1360, again, when there was a scare of invasion and
all men from sixteen to sixty were called out, then "bishops, abbots, and
priors, rectors, vicars, and chaplains were as ready as the abbots [_sic_]
had been, some to be men-at-arms and some to be archers ... and the
beneficed clergy who could not serve in person hired substitutes." In 1383
priests and monks were fighting even among the so-called crusaders whom
Bishop Despenser led against the French in Flanders.[226]
To have so large a proportion of the nation thus trained for home defence
was in itself a most important military asset, for it freed the hands of
the army which was on foreign service, and enabled it to act without
misgivings as to what might be happening at home. This was in fact the
militia which, while Edward III. was with his great army at Crecy and
Calais, inflicted on the Scottish invaders at Neville's Cross one of the
most crushing defeats in their history, and added one more crowned head to
the collection of noble prisoners in London.[227] But, more than this, it
formed a recruiting-field which alone enabled English armies, far from
their base, to hold their own against the forces of a country which at
that time had an enormous numerical superiority in population. It had
always been doubtful how far the militia was bound to serve abroad. Edward
III. himself had twice been forced to grant immunity by statute (first and
twenty-fifth years), but with the all-important saving clause "except
under great urgency." Such great urgency was in fact constantly pleaded,
and the cities did not care to contest the point. Several calls were made
on Norwich for 120 men at a time, a proportion which, in figures of modern
town population, would be roughly equivalent to 1200 from Northampton,
8000 from Birmingham, and 10,000 from Glasgow. In the year before Crecy
the less populous town of Lynn was assessed at 100 men "of the strongest
and most vigorous of the said town, each armed with breastplate, helmet,
and gauntlets ... for the defence and rescue of Our duchy of Aquitaine."
The drain on London at the same time was enormous, as I have already had
occasion to note in Chapter X. The briefest summary of the evidence
contained in Dr. Sharpe's Letter-Books will suffice here. On the outbreak
of war in 1337, in addition to a considerable tribute of ships, the city
was called upon for a contingent of 500 men--which would be equivalent to
the enormous tribute of 50,000 soldiers from modern London. Presently "the
king ... took occasion to find fault with the city's dilatoriness in
carrying out his orders, and complained of the want of physique in the
men that were being supplied. At the request of John de Pulteneye, who was
then occupying the Mayoral chair for the fourth time, he consented to
accept 200 able-bodied archers at once, and to postpone the selection of
the remainder of the force. At the same time he issued letters patent
declaring that the aid furnished by the city should not become a
precedent. The names of the 200 archers that went to Gascony are set out
in the Letter-Book...." But Royal promises are unstable. Another
contingent of 100 was sent soon after. In 1338 London was ordered to fit
out four ships with 300 men to join the home defence fleet at Winchelsea;
the citizens protested so strongly that this was reduced by a half. In
1340 the King seized all ships of forty tons' burden and raised 300 more
soldiers from London, who took part in the glorious victory of Sluys. In
1342 another levy; in 1344, 400 archers again; in 1346 "the sheriffs of
London were called upon to make proclamation for all persons between the
ages of sixteen and sixty to take up arms and to be at Portsmouth by March
26th"--a command which, however interpreted with the usual elasticity,
must yet have produced several hundred recruits for the army which fought
at Crecy. Next year two ships were demanded with 180 armed men, and two
more again later in the year. In 1350 two London ships with 170 armed men
were raised for the battle of Les Espagnols sur Mer. In 1355, again, 520
soldiers were demanded from the city.
While this was going on in the towns, the Berkeley papers give us similar
evidence of conscription in the counties, though the documents are not
here continuous. In 1332 the Sheriff of Gloucester was bidden to raise 100
men for service in Ireland; next year 500 for Scotland. Three years later
the country was obliged to send 2500 to Scotland, besides the Gloucester
city and Bristol contingents. Then comes the French war. In 1337 and 1338
Lord Berkeley spends most of his time mustering and arraying soldiers for
France. In the latter year, and again in 1339, Edward commissions him to
array and arm _all the able men_ in the country, as others were doing
throughout the kingdom; 563 were thus arrayed in the shire, and Smyth very
plausibly conjectures that the small number is due to Lord Berkeley's
secret favour for his own county. In 1345, when Edward made the great
effort which culminated at Crecy, the county and the town of Bristol had
to raise and arm 622 men "to be conducted whither Lord Berkeley should
direct." And so on until 1347, when there is a significant addition of
plenary powers to punish all refractory and rebellious persons, a riot
having apparently broken out on account of these levies.[228] From this
time forward the scattered notices never refer to levies for service
abroad; but they are still frequent for home defence, and Smyth proudly
records in three folio volumes the numbers of trained and disciplined men
in his own time (James I.), with their "names and several statures," in
the single hundred of Berkeley. The national militia always remained the
most valuable recruiting ground, and kept up that love of archery for
which the English were famous down to Elizabeth's days and beyond; yet,
for purely foreign wars, Edward's frequent drains broke the national
patience before the end of his reign. The evidence from London points most
plainly in this direction. In 1369 at last we find the tell-tale notice:
"It was frequently easier for the City to furnish the King with money than
with men. Hence we find it recorded that at the end of August of this year
the citizens had agreed to raise a sum of L2000 for the king in lieu of
furnishing him with a military contingent." Already by this time the tide
had turned against us in France; not that the few English troops failed to
keep up their superiority in the field, but Du Guesclin played a waiting
game and wore us steadily out. Castle after castle was surprised; isolated
detachments were crushed one by one; reinforcements were difficult to
raise; and before Edward's death three seaports alone were left of all his
French conquests. He had at one time wielded an army almost like
Napoleon's--a mass of professional soldiers raised from a nation in arms.
But, like Napoleon, he had used it recklessly. Such material could not be
supplied _ad infinitum_, and our victories began again only after a period
of comparative rest, when France was crippled by the madness of her King
and divided by internecine feuds.
Edward's conscription, it will be seen, was somewhat old-fashioned
compared with that of modern France and Germany. Men were enrolled for a
campaign partly by bargain, partly by force; and, once enrolled, the wars
generally made them into professional soldiers for life. No doubt
Shakespeare's caricature in the second part of _King Henry IV._ may help
us a little here, so long as we make due allowance for his comic purpose
and the rustiness of the institution in his time. For already in Chaucer's
lifetime there was a great change in our system of over-sea service. As
the sources of conscription began to dry up, the King fell back more and
more upon the expedient of hiring troops: he would get some great captain
to contract himself by indenture to bring so many armed men at a given
time, and the contractor in his turn entered into a number of
sub-contracts with minor leaders to contribute to his contingent. Under
this system a very large proportion of aliens came into our armies; but
even then we kept the same organization and principles as in those earlier
hosts which were really contingents of English militia.
An army thus drawn from a people accustomed to some real measure of
self-government inevitably broke through many feudal traditions; and from
a very early stage in the war we find important commands given to knights
and squires who had fought their way up from the ranks. The most renowned
of all these English soldiers of fortune, Sir John Hawkwood, married the
sister of Clarence's Violante, with a dowry of a million florins; yet he
is recorded to have begun as a common archer. He was probably a younger
son of a good Essex house; but this again simply emphasizes the democratic
and business-like organization of the English army compared with its
rivals. Du Guesclin, though he was the eldest son of one of the smaller
French nobles, found his promotion terribly retarded by his lack of birth
and influence. He was probably the most distinguished leader in France
before he even received the honour of knighthood. At the date of the
battle of Cocherel he had fought with success for more than twenty years,
and was by far the most distinguished captain present; yet he owed the
command on that day only to the rare good fortune that the greatest noble
present recognized his own comparative incapacity, and that the rest
agreed in offering to fight under a man of less social distinction but
incomparably greater experience than any of themselves. In the English
army there would from the first have been no doubt about the real
commander--Hawkwood, perhaps, who was believed to have begun life as a
tailor's apprentice, or Knolles, whom this war had taken from the weaver's
loom.
Even the magnificent Edward, with all his Round Table and his Order of the
Garter, was forced to recognize clearly that war is above all things a
business. In the earlier days he did indeed defy Philippe de Valois to
single combat; but during the campaign of Crecy he made light of the laws
of chivalry. He had penetrated close to Paris; his army was melting away;
provisions were scarce; and the French had broken the bridges in his
rear. At this point Philip sent him a regular chivalric challenge in form
to meet him with his army on a field and a day to be fixed at his own
choice, within certain reasonable limits. Edward returned a misleading
answer, made a corresponding feint with his troops, rapidly rebuilt the
bridge of Poissy, and had crossed to a place of safety before Philip
realized that a clever piece of strategy had been executed under his very
nose and behind the forms of chivalry. Then only did Edward throw off the
mask, and declare his intention of choosing his own place and time for
battle. His Royal great-grandson was even more business-like. When the
French nobles asked Henry V. to give a great tourney in honour of his
marriage, as had always been the custom, he refused in the bluntest and
most soldierly fashion. He and his men, he replied, would be engaged for
the next few weeks at the siege of Sens; if any gallant Frenchman wished
to break a lance or two, he might come and break them there. While this
mimic warfare was at its highest favour in France, the three Edwards had
always kept jealous control over it in England, and constantly forbidden
tournaments without Royal licence. This policy is, no doubt, partly
explained by some deference to ecclesiastical prohibitions, and partly by
the disorders to which jousts constantly gave rise; but we may pretty
safely infer (with Luce) that our kings had little belief in the direct
value of the knightly tournament as a school of warfare, and that here, as
on so many other points, the practical genius of the race broke even
through class prejudices.[229]
It is impossible better to sum up the results of English business methods
in warfare than in the words which are forced reluctantly from M. Luce's
impartial pen. "In my opinion, five or six thousand English archers, thus
drilled and equipped, and supported by an equal number of knifemen, would
always have beaten even considerably larger forces of the bravest chivalry
in the world--at least in a frontal attack and as a matter of sheer hard
fighting. Such, moreover, seems to have been the opinion of Bertrand du
Guesclin, the most renowned captain of the Middle Ages, who never fought a
great pitched battle against a real English army if he could possibly help
it. At Cocherel his adversaries were mostly Gascons, and at Pontvallain he
crushed Knolles's rear-guard by one of those startling marches of which he
had the secret; but he was beaten at Auray and Navarette." Gower might
complain without too poetical exaggeration that the vortex of war swept
away not only the serf from his plough but the very priest from his altar;
yet even Chaucer's Poor Parson may well have conceded that, if we must
have an army at all, we might as well have it as efficient and as truly
national as possible.
[Illustration: BODIAM CASTLE, KENT
BUILT DURING CHAUCER'S LIFETIME BY SIR EDWARD DALYNGRUDGE, WHO HAD FOUGHT
AT CRECY AND POITIERS]