Battle of Poitiers

“ The battle of Poitiers had been recently fought, the king of France was a prisoner, there was no organization, no central power, in the realm, and wherever possible the population took arms and fought in their own defence, seeking some little relief from the evils of anarchy. ”

“ In so far as an action in those days could carry a national effect—that is, could be regarded by distant civilian populations as proof of strength or weakness in contrasting races and societies—Poitiers had not even the claim of Crécy; for it was not principally an archers’ but a knights’ battle, and the knights were mainly the gentry of the South of France, while those who had been broken by the only cavalry movement of the engagement were not even French knights, but levies of German, Spanish, and other origin. ”

“ After the battle of Poitiers, the disbanded French soldiers, the soldiers of the King of Navarre, many Gascons, and even many English, had formed themselves into companies. These were commanded, not by common soldiers or by low-born persons, but by barons and nobles; one was even commanded by the brother of the King of Navarre. In the absence of their King, the barons seem to have broken loose from all restraint, and ravaged the country at pleasure. These companies kept the whole land in terror. They devasted the country, and sacked the cities; even Paris trembled at their approach. ”

“ We go to Froissart's account of the celebrated battle of Poitiers (France) . This was fought in 1356, between Edward the Black Prince on the English side, and King John on the side of the French. [22]
King John of the French was, of course, a great prize to be secured by the victorious English. There was eager individual rivalry as to what particular warrior should be adjudged his true captor. Froissart thus describes the strife and the issue:—
There was much pressing at this time, through eagerness to take the king ”

“ Every one who attempts to understand the battle of Poitiers must feel grateful to Colonel Babinet, even if he does not accept all that gentleman's views as to the course of events.
[29] The Chandos Herald was in the service of Sir John Chandos, one of the Black Prince's best officers. The herald was not apparently present, but he obviously must have had every means of knowing about the battle, in which Sir John fought; he did not, however, publish his rhymed narrative till some thirty years later. Froissart, who was nineteen years old in 1356, devoted his whole life to the work of his history ”

“ On leaving the battle-field of Poitiers, the little army of English, with many prisoners and rich booty, did not venture to attack any fortress on their way to Bordeaux; it would be honour enough to take back in safety the King of France and his son, and all the gold and silver and jewels they had won. They proceeded by slow marches, as they were heavily laden. They met with no resistance. The whole country was subdued by terror, and the men-at-arms retreated into the fortresses. ”

“ I was twenty years old when I learned that Charles was approaching Poitiers for the purpose of driving back the Arabians, who then threatened to invade the region. The moment, long dreamed of by my ambition, had arrived. One day I took the handsomest suit of armor from Bodegesil's racks, I sequestered a sword, a battle-axe, a lance and a buckler. When night fell I picked out of the stable the finest and most spirited horse. I put on the armor, and rode rapidly away from the castle. ”

“ See BLACK DEATH. FRANCE: A. D. 1350. Accession of King John II. FRANCE: A. D. 1356-1358. The States-General and Etienne Marcel. "The disaster of Poitiers [1356] excited in the minds of the people a sentiment of national grief, mixed with indignation and scorn at the nobility who had fled before an army so inferior in number. Those nobles who passed through the cities and towns on their return from the battle were pursued with imprecations and outrages. The Parisian bourgeoisie, animated with enthusiasm and courage, took upon itself at all risks the charge of its own defense ”

“ Scarcely any who were with the king attempted to escape. In this engagement, upward of two hundred knights and{242} squires were killed or captured. A band of Norman knights still kept up the battle in another part of the field; and of these Sir Guinenton de Chambly and Sir Baudrin de la House were slain. Many others were discomfited, who were fighting in small bodies.
CHAPTER LXXIX.
Two Frenchmen, running away from the Battle of Poitiers, are pursued by two Englishmen, who are themselves made Prisoners. ”

“ Equally out of keeping with the prevalent feeling of the French at the time is the story that the king and the Dauphin wanted to join the army, and were prevented by the old duke of Berri, the king's uncle, who said, remembering Poitiers, "Better lose the battle than the king and the battle too." Why, if there was anything of an army in Normandy, and the council at Rouen were so bent on a battle, no attempt was made to harass Henry's march, when the Constable was ready to stop him in front, does not appear. ”

“ These knights departed with two hundred men of arms well horsed; they rode so far that they saw the great battle of the king's, they saw all the fields covered with men of arms. These Englishmen could not forbear, but set on the tail of the French host and cast down many to the earth and took divers prisoners, so that the host began to stir, and tidings thereof came to the French king as he was entering into the city of Poitiers. ”

“ The same night there was come to Poitiers the lord of Roye with a hundred spears: he was not at the battle, but he met the duke of Normandy near to Chauvigny, and the duke sent him to Poitiers to keep the town till they heard other tidings. When the lord of Roye knew that the Englishmen were so near coming to the city, he caused every man to be armed and every man to go to his defence to the walls, towers and gates; and the Englishmen passed by without any approaching, for they were so laded with gold, silver and prisoners, that in their returning they assaulted no fortress ”

“ The first thought that will strike the modern student of such a position is that a larger force, such as the one commanded by the King of France, should have been able easily to turn the defensive upon its right.
Now, first, a feudal army rarely manœuvred. For that matter, the situation was such that if John had avoided a fight altogether, and had merely marched down the great south-western road to block Prince Edward’s retreat, the move would have had a more complete effect than winning a pitched battle. ”

“ It further meant, counting the destruction of the vanguard and the cutting [Pg 95] to pieces of the Dauphin’s “battle,” the permanent inferiority through the rest of the day of anything that the French king could bring against the Plantagenets. The battle was lost from that moment, between ten and eleven o’clock, when Orleans’ confused column, pouring, jostled off the field, left the great gap open between King John and the lead of his third battle and the English force. ”

“ You would have seen a force such as that of the Black Prince or of King John camped before a battle, a white town of tents crossing the fields, with here and there a vivid patch of colour where some great leader’s pavilion was of blue or red and gold. The billeting of men upon householders was a [Pg 103] necessary feature of a long march, or of the occupation of a town. But when there was question of occupying a position, or when an army was too large to lodge under roof, it depended upon canvas. But it must be remembered that not the whole of a force by any means enjoyed that advantage ”

“ In 550 several Spanish cities both on the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic, were ceded to Justinian, and they did not shake off the yoke until 620: so that for 70 years Rome had the empty honor of numbering Spain among her provinces.
5 One of the fifteen decisive battles of the world was that fought in the year 732, the battle-field being between the cities of Tours and Poitiers, France. By English historians it is usually called the battle of Tours, while the French call it Poitiers. It was here that Charles Martel checked the tide of the Moorish invasion into Europe. ”

“ Documentary evidence shows that the spot formerly called Maupertuis is La Cardinerie, a farm near the Limoges road, about five miles south-east of Poitiers. This disposes of the theory of the battle, based upon expressions of the chroniclers to the effect that the Black Prince could not help fighting, that the French army was between him and Bordeaux. It also destroys all ground for the charge against king John of wasteful folly in attacking his enemy strongly posted, when that enemy had no choice, unless he would starve or surrender, but to attack an enormously superior force. ”

“ But these parallel and typical actions, lying ten years apart, have, of course, one main point of resemblance more important than all the rest: each includes the complete overthrow of a large body of feudal cavalry by the trained forces of the Plantagenets; Crécy wholly, Poitiers partly, by the excellence of a missile weapon—the long-bow. Each shows also a striking disproportion of numbers: the little force on the defensive completely defeating the much larger body of the attack. ”

“ The old soldier has got him a cassock and become a gentle-faced dominie. The sleepy music of bells calling, the pensive air of study, the odour of simple piety, the sober confidence of great possessions, are most impressive. Poitiers has beaten her swords into crosiers and her spears into tuning-forks. Never was there an old age so ripe, so mellow, so becoming. With this for evidence, you may look History in the eyes and swear that you have seen Poitiers in the prime of her full life. ”

“ At Taillebourg, in Saintonge, the Earl of Derby had all the inhabitants put to the sword, in reprisals for the death of one knight, who during the assault on the town had met with his death. So it fared during the same campaign with three other places in Poitou, the chronicler giving us more details with reference to the fate of Poitiers. There were no knights in the town accustomed to war and capable of organising a defence; and it was only people of the poorer sort who offered a brave but futile resistance to the army. When the town was won, 700 people were massacred ”

“ Armies defending a whole countryside, notably the French armies defending French territory during the Hundred Years’ War, levied, swept up, or got as volunteers masses of untrained men. Expeditions abroad had none such: they had no use for them. Edward had none at Crécy and his son had none at Poitiers ”

“ All the historians narrate the history of the siege of Poitiers (see Claude Haton, II, 375 ff.; La Popelinière, Book XVII; D’Aubigné, Book V, chap, v; Claude Haton, II, 534; De Thou, Book XLV; Liberge, Ample discourse de ce qui s’est fait au siège de Poitiers, 1569, new ed., 1846, by Beauchet-Felleau; Mém., de Jean d’Antras, ed. Cansalade and Tamizey de Larroque, 1880; see also Whitehead, Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France, 215, 216; Babinet, Mém. de la Soc. des antiq. de l’ouest, séries II, Vol. XI) . ”

“ Poitiers belongs to so many ages—Gaul, Roman, Visigoth, Frank, English—that it holds a place in every great event which has occurred in France during the last nineteen centuries. Four important battles were fought in its neighbourhood: those of Clovis, of Charles Martel, of Edward of England, and of Henry III. of France; all these struggles brought about results of the utmost consequence to the country. The fields where these battles were fought are still pointed out, though the site of each is violently contested by antiquarians. ”

“ The troops of no other nation could produce a body of men in the least comparable to them, either in strength, discipline,{160} or individual valor; and such was the dreadful efficacy with which they used their weapons that not only did they mainly contribute to the subsequent triumphs of Cressy and Azincourt, but at Poitiers and Hamildon Hill they alone gained the victory, with hardly any assistance from the feudal tenantry. ”

“ But it was not the captains of the Companies alone who were Gascons, French, and Bretons. The nobles throughout Guyenne were more than half of them on the English side. The famous commander who did so much towards achieving the victory of Poitiers was a Frenchman, the Captal de Buch, Jean de Greuilly, Constable of Aquitaine for the English crown. ”

“ The mounted archers made the gaps and the men-at-arms rode into them. The division was broken, the King was captured, and the mass of the fugitives making for Poitiers found the gates closed against them and were cut down by hundreds. The action began at six in the morning, and lasted till late into the afternoon. The French losses were enormous. Over and above the King and many great lords two thousand men-at-arms were captured, and two thousand five hundred more were left dead on the field; the number of the unhappy foot-men that were slain it is impossible to state. ”

“ After the brilliant victory of Poitiers (732) , where the repulse of Arab civilisation left the field open to the defenders of the Christian faith, and to the originators of the feudal régime, the victorious army underwent a sudden change. The Frankish knights adopted as an inheritance of conquest the rich Saracen armour (Figs. 37, 38, 39, 40) ; the feudal troopers donned a coat of mail, and, henceforward, a full suit of armour became a necessary accessory to a warrior of high rank. ”

“ At no period of her history did England stand so high in the eyes of Europe as in the time whose events are recorded in this volume. A chivalrous king and an even more chivalrous prince had infected the whole people with their martial spirit, and the result was that their armies were for a time invincible, and the most astonishing successes were gained against numbers which would appear overwhelming. The victories of Cressy and Poitiers may be to some extent accounted for by superior generalship and discipline on the part of the conquerors ”