Battle of Crécy

“ At Crécy, at any rate, they grumbled, every one had fought bravely and done their best; no shadow of dishonour had rested on the lilies of France. The nobles might have been proud and extortionate, but in the hour of danger they did not flinch. They lay in heaps on the field of battle, and a life of extravagance and dissipation was redeemed by a hero’s death. ”

“ There can be no tradition of the exact moments in which such and such a development in a battle occurred, of contours, of range, etc., save where here and there some very striking event (as in the case of the projectile launched into the midst of Acre during the Third Crusade) startles the mind of the onlooker, and remains unforgotten.
In the particular case of Crécy, tradition fixes for us only two points—though these have proved of considerable importance in modern discussion—the point where the King of Bohemia fell, and the point from which Edward III. watched the battle. ”

“ Hence he was sometimes not much inferior, as a combatant, to the mail-clad man-at-arms. Now, at the battle of Crecy, the French, though the wretched serfs were so numerous, had only about 8000 men-at-arms; and though the English had not a third of that number of the higher kind of warriors, yet they had nearly 30,000 sturdy bowmen and billmen. A characteristic illustration of the contempt with which the poor slaves were viewed occurred in that very battle. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Their abject poverty would tempt them to steal, and their physical weakness prevent them, even if they were courageous, from defending our property. Since the Battle of Cressy, (26 August 1346 near Crécy; northern France) history does not tell of lean and hungry men having ever proved valiant.
As night closed in, we lighted fires along the beach and around the camp as guiding signals to the boats. ”

“ The advantage of that position which upon emerging from the forest Edward had immediately seized, will be dealt with in the ensuing section; meanwhile we must return to inquire what was happening to the French pursuit.
We must not consider the French army as one united body. Had it been that, it would not have been defeated, and, what is more, the particular place of Crécy in military history, and its lesson of the contrast between the older feudal and the newer regular levies, would never have been taken ”

“ At each instant the road became more encumbered. Infantry, cavalry, and artillery, were pressing along pell-mell: jammed together like a solid mass. Figure to yourself 40,000 men struggling and thrusting themselves along a single causeway. We could not take that way without destruction; so the generals who had collected together near the Hougoumont hedge dispersed across the fields. General Foy alone remained with the 300 men whom he had gleaned from the field of battle, and marched at their head. Our anxiety was to withdraw from the scene of action without being confounded with the fugitives. ”

“ For the burial of the common soldiers the peasants dug long, deep ditches, traces of which may be seen to this day.
So was won the battle of Cressy, the first of England's great series of victories upon the Continent. It showed the powerlessness of chivalry before the strength of the people. The proudest knights of France had fallen helpless before the [Pg 45] English yeoman, with his bow and arrows. It showed that the strength of a nation no longer lay in the brilliant appearance or the boasted bravery of its knights, but in the steadfastness and sturdy courage of its people. ”

“ The essential novelty in Edward's tactics, the fact which makes Crecy an epoch in the history of the art of war, was that having to fight with very inferior numbers he discerned an effective way of combining the two elements of his army. He caused all the men-at-arms to dismount, and placed the horses with the baggage in an enclosed park in rear. The men-at-arms were to serve simply as spearmen, like the Scots at Falkirk and Bannockburn: they were to form the solid line of resistance, while the archers shot down the assailants. ”

“ A graphic picture of the fight in Crecy wood was given by a correspondent who said: The French and English in overwhelming numbers had poured in from Lagny toward the River Marne to reinforce the flanking skirmishers. One of the smaller woods southeast of Crecy furnished cover for the enemy for a time, but led to their undoing. The Allies' patrols discovered them in the night as the Germans were moving about with lanterns.
Suddenly the invaders found their twinkling glow-worms the mark for a foe of whom they had been unaware. ”

“ Women and children, with here and there an old man, ran along (p. 117) the line of march ministering to the wants of their defenders. There was no need for language, as courtesy and gratitude are universal, and the English were fighting for "La Belle France." So the morning wore on.
Through the forested region of Crécy the British passed, and it has been told hereinbefore how they surprised the two cavalry commands thrust out as scouts by General von Kluck. But, as they reached the land that had been occupied by the German hosts, the bearing of the men changed, even as the country changed. ”

“ That evening was the most anxious that the great English leader had ever spent. Fight he must on the morrow, for not a morsel of food was left; and he would have to attack, with barely thirty thousand men, more than one hundred thousand. At Crecy and Poitiers his strong position had won the day against superior numbers, but now all the advantages of numbers and position were with the enemy.
The sun was sinking when his watchful eye saw a small group of horsemen advance a little before the glittering wall of spears and helmets in the Spanish host. ”

“ The advance leaves the coast at the summit of that projection of Normandy called the Cotentin, and proceeds a little south of east towards Paris, the walls of which are reached by its outermost skirmishers, while the main army crosses the Seine at Poissy. The retreat is effected from Poissy northward to the victorious field of Crécy, and later from Crécy, on the same line, to the siege and capture of Calais. ”

“ Then each man going to his post seated himself on the ground, with his helmet and bow before him, that he might be fresh when the enemy arrived. All the knights had dismounted, intending to fight on foot.
The French had left Abbeville at sunrise. The army, made unwieldy by its size, was weary and disorganised by the long march. The lords who had been sent forward to reconnoitre, came back and advised the French king to let his men rest that night, and not engage battle till the morrow. But the French knights, in proud confidence of their own superiority, were impatient to fight. ”

“ He survived those wars, and the empire itself, dying in extreme old age in 1820. The last wish of the veteran on his death-bed was that his heart should be deposited in the battle-field of Valmy, there to repose among the remains of his old companions-in-arms, who had fallen at his side on that spot twenty-eight years before, on the memorable day when they won the primal victory of Revolutionary France, and prevented the armies of Brunswick and the emigrant bands of Condé from marching on defenceless Paris, and destroying the immature democracy in its cradle. ”

“ Just ere Crecy Field was fought, men saw him flitting to and fro in the Haunted Circle, uttering cries that made all hearts fail; and now that he hath shown himself again, no doubt some fresh trouble is at hand. God help us!”
“Of what form is he?” asked the pedlar, his ruddy face paling visibly.
“Like a knight fully armed, but with armour of ancient fashion, and all stained and rusty with lying long in the damp grave. He is ever seen on foot, with visor closed and sword in hand; and, be the moon ever so bright, he hath no shadow!” ”

“ The pickets gradually gave way, under the command of the indomitable Creighton, fighting their way back to the line of battle, in which they took position. The rebels came gallantly forward, in anticipation of an easy victory. When within short-range of our guns, they were met by such a terrible fire of musketry from our partially concealed line, as to check their advance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For the encouragement of a first victory to an enemy, and the discouragement of being beaten, to the invaded, may draw after it a most perilous consequence.
"Great difference I know there is, and a diverse consideration to be had, between such a country as France is, strengthened with many fortified places; and this of ours, where our ramparts are but the bodies of men. But I say that an army to be transported over sea, and to be landed again in an enemy's country, and the place left to the choice of the invader, cannot be resisted on the coast of England, without a fleet to impeach it ”

“ Edward III. did not win Crecy merely because his men-at-arms fought on foot, but because he had learned, alike from the victory of Falkirk and from the defeat of Bannockburn, how to combine the destroying force of archers with the defensive firmness of spearmen on foot. Moreover the difference between offensive and defensive tactics is fundamental. Horsemen obviously by dismounting lose most of their momentum for attack; as obviously, they cannot in any other way stand firm to sustain a charge. ”

“ If they enter France they will there find their grave.
"Soldiers! we have forced marches to make, battles to fight, dangers to encounter; but, with firmness victory will, be ours. The rights, the honour, and the happiness of the country will be recovered!
"To every Frenchman who has a heart, the moment is now arrived to conquer or to die.
"Napoleon."
"The Marshal Duke of Dalmatia. Major General."
The 15th of June had scarcely dawned before the French army was in motion for the decisive campaign, and crossed the frontier in three columns, which were pointed upon Charleroi and its vicinity. ”

“ On the following morning, the Orleannais, from their walls saw the great forts called "London" and "St. Lawrence" in flames; and witnessed their invaders busy in destroying the stores and munitions which had been relied on for the destruction of Orleans. Slowly and sullenly the English army retired; and not before it had drawn up in battle array opposite to the city, as if to challenge the garrison to an encounter. The French troops were eager to go out and attack, but Joan forbade it. ”

“ One hits, another misses; one flies, another pursues : one is aiming a stroke, while another discharges his blow. Nor- man strives with Englishman again, and aims his blows afresh. One flies, another pursues swiftly : the combatants are many, the plain wide, the battle and the mêlée fierce. On every hand they fight hard, the blows are heavy, and the struggle becomes fierce.
"The Normans were playing their part well, when an English knight came rushing up, having in his company a hundred men, furnished with various arms. He wielded a northern hatchet, with the blade a full foot long ”

“ Riding up to one of the squares, which had been dreadfully weakened, and against which a fresh attack of French cavalry was coming, he called to them: "Stand firm, my lads; what will they say of this in England?" As he rode along another part of the line where the men had for some time been falling fast beneath the enemy's cannonade, without having any close fighting, a murmur reached his ear of natural eagerness to advance and do something more than stand still to be shot at. The Duke called to them: "Wait a little longer, my lads, and you shall have your wish." ”

“ She fell bleeding from the ladder; and the English were leaping down from the wall to capture her, but her followers bore her off. She was carried to the rear, and laid upon the grass; her armour was taken off, and the anguish of her wound and the sight of her blood, made her at first tremble and weep. But her confidence in her celestial mission soon returned: her patron saints seemed to stand before her and reassure her. She sate up and drew the arrow out with her own hands. Some of the soldiers who stood by wished to stanch the blood, by saying a charm over the wound ”

“ The allied cavalry galloped forward at the enemy's squadrons, and the hearts of the French horsemen failed them. Discharging their carbines at an idle distance, they wheeled round and spurred from the field, leaving the nine infantry battalions of their comrades to be ridden down by the torrent of the allied cavalry. The battle was now won. Tallard and Marsin, severed from each other, thought only of retreat. Tallard drew up the squadrons of horse that he had left, in a line extended towards Blenheim, and sent orders to the infantry in that village to leave it and join him without delay. ”