The Myth and Mystery of Agincourt

Part II of the material I presented at All Champions

Or: Luckily Shakespeare isn’t our only source

The Battle of Agincourt took place on October 25th, 1415, on a rather muddy field in France between Tramecourt and Agincourt (both woods and towns). Henry V had taken the port of Harfleur after a siege which had taken a larger than expected tole on his army, and was marching to Calais (then in English hands) to rest and refit his army. Weakened by dysentery, harassed by French forces, and on hostile terrain in bad weather, Henry’s army was intercepted by a French force which outnumbered them by less than 3:2 (a recent proposal by Professor Anne Curry), over 10:1 (a common early estimate) or somewhere in between. By any measure at the time, Henry’s army probably looked like the underdog. The French, it seems, were certainly confident of victory.

The day, however, would prove otherwise. Although the exact sequence of events is disputed, the battle proceeded more or less as follows. The French initially held their position, knowing that Henry would have to engage them in order to get through to Calais and perhaps leery of attacking English bowman after battles such as Crecy. Henry also preferred not to attack, having emplaced wooden stakes to protect his archers in his initial position. After some hours however he advanced his own army, halting at long bow-shot (~300 yards) and re-emplacing the stakes to protect his archers. The bowmen then opened fire on the French line, which finally caused the French to commence an assault. Slowed by the mud, crowded together by the narrowing field of battle (the tree lines slanted towards the English position on both sides of the field), and under a constant rain of arrows, the French were in bad shape by the time they reached the English line. The French cavalry was unable to breach the line of wooden stakes, and the infantry was exhausted by the march across the field under fire. The compressed field prevented the flanking maneuvers that the French seem to have planned for; although one small unit of French troops did reach the English rear, they spent their time looting the English camp rather than attacking the army’s rear. Henry’s army, having fought off two waves of French attacks in over three hours of fighting and having exhausted at least their ready supplies of arrows, saw the French reserve still in front of them and had word of their camp under attack from the rear. Henry ordered that most of the prisoners taken to that point be killed for fear they would rise up against their captors while they were fighting the third line. But the French third line did not attack, instead withdrawing from the field.

With more than a six-fold variance in the odds against the English and similar variety in the estimates of the forces on either side (somewhere around 5,000-7,000 for the English being the most common estimate, but ranging from 4,000-12,000, with far greater ranges for the French), one would expect a great deal of variety in the casualty figures as well, and indeed this is the case. Estimates of the English dead run from under a hundred to nearly two thousand, with casualty ratios of between 6:1 (favoring the English) and over 50:1! All that we can say for sure is that the English achieved a major tactical victory.