Some Thoughts on the Battle of Agincourt

by Master Richard the Poor of Ely

Frankly, I don't really see what the big deal is about Agincourt.  If
Shakespeare hadn't written a play around it, it would probably be
relegated to the mediocre status it deserves.

Yes, the English were outnumbered by at least three to one.  But
numbers were the only thing the French had going for them.  Every other
factor--leadership, terrain, morale--was to the advantage of the
English.  Taking these into account more than makes up for the
difference in numbers.

The battle itself really had no business happening in the first place.
After taking Harfleur (which the French wouldn't have lost if they had
bothered to send anything even remotely resembling a relief force), the
soundest course of action would have been for Henry V to have left a
strong garrison there and returned the next spring to begin the
reduction of Normandy.  Instead, he risked disgrace, defeat, and worse,
and marched to Calais.

At first, the French responded correctly to this strategy.  They kept
between Henry and Calais, continually harassing him with the intention
of reducing his army to nothing.  The vanity of the nobility wouldn't
allow this to continue, though, so they offered battle at Agincourt.
Henry was smarter than they were, so he saw that he had a good chance
of winning and accepted the offer.

The English had learned a good tactic for such situations many decades
earlier:  get into a defensible position, goad the enemy into
attacking, then use archers to break up the attack into a chaotic
mass.  By the time the enemy gets to your position, they are already
defeated.  Despite numerous opportunities to learn otherwise, the
French played into the hands of the English.  And they got trashed, of
course.

Probably because of its accidental origins, the Battle of Agincourt
decided nothing.  Yes, a lot of the French nobility wound up dead.  But
they brought it on themselves through their own stupidity, so it was
really no loss to France.  Henry and his troops staggered on exhausted
to Calais, and when they got back to London, were given a hero's
welcome.

Henry waited two years to return to France, when he used Harfleur as a
base to begin the conquest of Normandy.  Which is what he should have
done instead of marching to Calais.  The French, meanwhile, did nothing
to prepare for his second coming.  So they lost Normandy, and only
Henry's early death kept them from losing their country as well.


From the November 1996 Seahorse