Battle Report: Crécy, centuries in the making
Edward III is known as perhaps one of England’s greatest Kings but without his battles against France, Edward would have likely blended into the menagerie of Plantagenet Monarchs. One such battle that puts both Edward III and his son, Edward ‘The Black Prince’ of Wales firmly in the pantheon of Great Englishmen is the Battle of Crécy.
Edward The Black Prince receives the grant of Aquitaine from his father King Edward III (1390) SOURCE: British Library/Public domain
Prelude to war
England and France had been military and political rivals since the conquest of England by William of Normandy back in 1066, with the two kingdoms coming to blows more than once. By the reign of Edward III (1327-1377) the rivalry had reached fever pitch, with the young English king asserting his right, through his mother, to rule France as its closest male heir. You might be wondering ‘how on earth did an English king claim the throne of France?’ and the answer is simple (very complicated). After the death of Philip IV of France in 1328, there were no direct male heirs to inherit the crown, the closet being the old king’s nephew, Edward of England. His mother, Isabella of France, who was Philip’s sister could not inherit the crown herself due to France’s rules against the crown passing matrilineally (through a female heir) and thus Isabella, tried to claim the throne for her son. Understandably, the French nobility were unhappy at the thought of both an English king and, one that would have inherited through a women on their throne, choosing to elect the dead king’s Valois cousin, Philip, who would become Philip VI.
For the first few years of Edward’s reign, he didn’t really pursue his claim, allowing the Valois count to sit on ‘his’ throne with little complaint from Edward, but when in 1337 Philip VI confiscated Edward’s continental territories around Gascony, Edward’s tactics changed. It wasn’t until 1340 that Edward III officially made his claim on the French throne, quartering his coat of arms with the French Lily or Fleur de Lis, launching a successful naval attack on the French fleet at Sluys. the massive victory that saw the massive French navy destroyed by the smaller and more nimble English fleet, lead to relativity no gains on land and a truce as called after attempts to gain the support of Brittany ended in stalemate.
The coat of arms of Edward III after 1340, see the Leopards of England quartered with the Fleur de Lis of France SOURCE: Sodacan via Wikimedia Commons
The Crécy campaign
BY 1346, Edward and his now 16 year old son, The Black Prince, were ready to attack French lands again. Unlike previous attempts, this time, Edward would land an army in northern France and carry out what was called a chevauchee, a fancy way of saying commit mass arson and destruction across a wide area of enemy territory.
Edward’s force landed on the Cotentin Peninsula in July, almost exactly 600 years before the allied forces would land there during the invasion of France during World War II, and carried out their scorched earth along the Normandy coast. As Edward and his 15,000 strong army moved through Normandy, they were stalked by Philip and his French knights, that had gathered to push Edward back into the sea. ideally, Edward would not fight the French army in the field as the French had the most dangerous and best equipped army in the world. Made up of thousands of heavily armoured knights supported by mercenary Genoese crossbowmen, a combination that had won France countless battles in the past. Eventually, Edward knew that he would have to fight Philip’s army but he knew that he would need to use the terrain and superior tactics to beat his much larger enemy.
Philip’s army was made up of almost 12,000 knights alone, with a further 12,000 infantry men and 5,000 to 6,000 Genoese crossbowmen in reserve. Along side the King of France, was the blind king John of Bohemia, whose troops helped to bloat the French army even further pushing the total French numbers to around 30,000 men. The French forces dwarfed the English army made up mainly of archers (over 8,000) with just a few thousand mounted knights and men-at-arms of their own.
By early August, the English army were just 20 miles (32km) away from Paris, but Edward chose to turn his army north to meet up with his flemish allies that had invaded from Flanders. Philip’s much larger force were still shadowing the English and had managed to circumvent the invaders, trapping them on the wrong side of the Somme.
Map of the route of Edward III's chevauchee of 1346 SOURCE: Wikimedia Commons user: Newm30
With all of the river crossings blocked by the French army, Edward learned of a potential ford at Blanchetaque near the mouth of the Somme, arriving with his army on 24th August. Meeting a contingent of some 4,000 frenchmen, Edward ordered his longbowmen march into the river to suppress the enemy forces, allowing the rest of the army to cross. the Battle at Blanchetaque was a resounding success for the English, with the longbows using their superior range and rate of fire to keep the French pinned down, a tactic that would come to haunt the French later.
The Battle of Crécy
On 26th August, the English army arrived at the small northern village of Crécy, a good defensive position between a river and mashy areas. Edward’s aim had been to escape to Flanders where his allies would have been able to help him and possibly stop the French from advancing but, he knew that Philip would catch up with him and cut off any route of retreat. Edward had his men divided into three battles, with his dismounted men-at-arms in the centres and archers on the flanks. As well as this, Edward had his men dig trenches along their front line paired with a mass array of tipped stakes, to slow down the thousands of enemy cavalry that would undoubtably be crashing into their lines. The English army had the whole day to get themselves ready for the battle as the French had been marching and didn’t reach the English lines until late on in the afternoon. Going against all conventional wisdom, instead of waiting and resting possibly until the next day, Philip and the French decided they would attack as soon as they laid eyes on Edward’s Forces, ordering the crossbowmen to advance on the English archers.
The crossbowmen advanced under torrential rain that both slowed them down and, slackened their bow strings, meaning they had to get painfully close to the English lines. Using this poor weather, the longbows of England opened fire at the advancing soldiers, decimating them as they turned to retreat. The furious heavy cavalry in the rear, saw the cowardly crossbows turn from the fight and charged directly into them cutting many of their fellow French and Genoese comrades down in pure rage at their supposed cowardly retreat.
A modern depiction of mercenary Genoese Crossbowmen firing and reloading behind their large Pavise shields, something they didn’t have a Crécy as they were left on the baggage train SOURCE: Pinterest
With the added confusion created by the French cavalry and crossbowmen, more and more arrows rained down on the confused French right flank who didn’t even get close to the English infantry waiting behind their defences. It is important to remember that even at relatively close range, an arrow was unlikely to pierce heavy plate armour but the mass of projectiles played havoc on the advancing cavalry who had their horses killed from underneath them and the sheer force of a projectile hitting you at over 90 miles per hour would be enough to knock you down and cause serious blunt force trauma as well as piercing poorly protected areas of your body. Both the physical and psychological effects of thousands of arrows showering the advancing French, soon forced the few remaining knights to turn and flee the field with just catastrophic losses and no damage done to the English lines.
After a failed cavalry attack on the English left flank, the afore mentioned Blind (actually blind!) King John of Bohemia, instructed his men to strap him to his horse, point him at the enemy and join him on a suicidal charge into the English right, coming face to face with the young Prince of Wales, Edward. Some how, the French and Bohemian knights managed to reach the lines of the English, forcing the bowmen behind the lines of men-at-arms. Things started to turn in favour of the French as the Standard of the now wounded heir to the throne fell, but the well rested troops that had been stationed on the left flank of the English lines quickly ran to protect the right flank, unsure if the Black Prince was even alive. The English reinforcements were enough to repel the cavalry attack, and with the very much alive, Prince Edward, he and his men, killed the king of Bohemia and routed his few remaining men.
Ether pure bravery or unbridled stupidity, the attack carried out by John of Bohemia was the most successful attempt by the French forces that whole day. With 13 more charges (yes, 13!) The French were unable to break the English lines getting stuck in the quagmire that was forming in front of the bowmen who were having a field day, cutting down French knights like it was target practice. It cannot be stressed enough, the enormous strength and endurance that the English longbowmen needed to fire continuously at the advancing cavalry.
After the vast majority of the French Knights were completely wiped out,King Edward marched his reserves around the sides of his archers and plunged them into the few remaining Frenchmen, causing an all out route. The French King fought valiantly, having two horses killed form under him before retreating with his life, a well and truly beaten French army had lost some 10,000 men and a large portion of the knightly class.
A beautiful depiction of the battle of Crécy by Jean Froissart (1337-1405) SOURCE: Public domain
A most complete victory
After the shocking defeat of the massive French army at Crécy, Edward and his army continued their march through northern France, laying siege to Calais, taking it a year later, allowing England a foothold in France for the next two centuries. Through Edward’s life time, the English cause in France continued to grow with more and more land taken, taking advantage of a weakened French monarchy leading to decades of success for Edward.
The success of Edward and his son, The Black Prince would not last forever and ultimately, the French throne stayed in French hands with the English under the feckless king Henry VI , eventually loosing the conflict that would be known to history as The Hundred Years war.
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