Henry V at Agincourt

At the Battle of Agincourt on October 25, 1415, Henry V, king of England, rallied his weary army with his now-famous St. Crispin s Day speech, as immortalized by Shakespeare, We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, ^[4] and used combined arms to rout the French Army ”four times larger than his own army ”that opposed him.

Figure 10.1: Henry V at Agincourt, 1415

With approximately thirty thousand French troops in hot pursuit of his seven-thousand-man army, Henry decided to make a stand near the town of Agincourt in northern France. On a muddy field surrounded by woods and only nine hundred yards wide, the French formed for battle in three ranks, with heavy infantry in the center and armored, horse-mounted cavalry on either side. Henry correctly observed that their formation would be compressed tightly on the relatively narrow field and that individual or unit maneuver in the ankle-deep mud would be difficult. ^[5] He therefore arrayed his troops in an open -U-shaped single line, with heavy infantry in the middle and archers, facing inward at a forty-five-degree angle, on either side. The archers oblique orientation was intended to enable them to provide either direct fire into the French lines or supporting fire for Henry s heavy infantry in the center of the English line. Henry also anchored the extreme left and right of his formation to the woods to prevent the French cavalry from riding around the ends of his line and attacking his vulnerable flanks.

Henry marched his forces within longbow range of the French, took a defensive position, and waited for the French attack. Renowned for their prowess, the English archers could fire their powerful longbows up to ten arrows per minute at a range of up to 300 yards. ^[6] These arrows had tremendous knock-down power and were lethal to infantry and horses alike at great distances. Still Henry s foot-mobile troops were vulnerable to a charge by horse-mounted heavy cavalry, which was imminent. To counter this weakness, Henry ordered his men to carve eight- foot -long wooden stakes and drive them into the ground at forty-five-degree angles; his reasoning was that the approaching horses would either stop out of instinctual fear of the stakes or be impaled. And he needed to protect his archers, who would no doubt be the first target of the charge.

At 11 a.m. on October 25, the French cavalry charged. As the horses reached the stakes, they did exactly what Henry thought they would ”they stopped short, often throwing their riders. Horses that were not killed by the archers bucked their riders and frantically ran back to French lines. Heavily armored riders who had been thrown from their mounts became inescapably stuck in the mud, and the U-shaped English formation funneled the French formation into the middle of the field.

As the second wave of the French attack began , advancing troops collided with the frantic horses, creating disarray in the French ranks, and a steady hail of deadly arrows from the English longbows quickly turned disarray into mass confusion. The U-shaped English formation continued to funnel the newly committed French troops into the already compressed field, where they were held nearly motionless, exposed to English archers. The second French wave failed to make a measurable advance, while the third wave never materialized. The French foot soldiers from the initial charge that did manage to reach the English lines were too exhausted to fight effectively; the English heavy infantry defeated them with ease.

The outnumbered English handily won the day, and Henry saved his army from near-certain obliteration. The French lost an estimated 7,000 soldiers, while the English suffered a relatively low 150 casualties. On October 29, Henry and his army reached the coastal city of Calais, France, and safely returned to England. ^[7]

Leadership Lessons

Henry s tactics demonstrate an early yet highly effective example of combined arms. Without the stakes the horses easily would have overrun his archers. Without the archers the armored attackers could have dismounted and circumvented the stakes to annihilate his heavy infantry. And without the clever use of terrain the French cavalry could have bypassed the ends of his lines and attacked his vulnerable flanks. Moreover, the stakes triggered an instinctual reaction in the French horses, which, in turn , created pandemonium in the waves of attacking French soldiers. Though use of the stakes was somewhat common during Henry s day, Henry used them in a uniquely deadly combination with his other assets. A withering cross fire of arrows exploited this pandemonium and created a deteriorating situation for exhausted and disoriented French survivors with only one apparent way out ”by attempting to fight through fresh, well-armed English infantry. The French were indeed caught in the horns of a dilemma.

^[4] October 25 happened to be a popular holiday named for St. Crispin, the patron saint of shoemakers, who lived in the third century a.d.

^[5] Historians troop-strength estimates range widely. English strength is estimated to have been six thousand to thirteen thousand, while French strength is estimated to have been twenty thousand to fifty thousand. However, most historians agree that the English were outnumbered by a four-to-one margin.

^[6] The Great Battles, Agincourt 1415 (www.geocities.com/beckster05).

^[7] Battle of Agincourt (www.aginc.net/battle/ops.html).