There are two historic
anniversaries this year. By chance, both of them involve crushing
defeats of the French (one turned out to be a strategic triumph, the
other was rendered a glorious but fleeting moment due to the cruelty
of fate).
It is two centuries
since the Battle of Waterloo, which demonstrated the tactical
supremacy of a British footwear designer [to paraphrase the famous
Albino Blacksheep page] over a troublesome Corsican. Six centuries
have passed since one of England’s most heroic kings, Henry V,
proved on the field of Agincourt that charging towards thousands of
archers was not necessarily a recipe for victory.
The Battle of
Waterloo
Napoleon had been
exiled to the island of Elba. Unfortunately, the former French
Emperor decided retirement didn’t suit him, and returned to the
fore. He marched north, having been declared an outlaw. Numerous
powers, including the UK and Prussia, organised forces to match his
own. Napoleon had to destroy part of the coalition against him before
reinforcements could arrive, and so the path to Waterloo began.
On
18 June Napoleon and Wellington clashed in the Battle of Waterloo.
Blücher,
commanding the Prussians, was nearby and heading to reinforce
Wellington.
The
French and multi-national armies led by Napoleon and Wellington
respectively were almost identical in raw numbers, with 69,000 for
the French and 67,000 for the coalition. Roughly half Wellington’s
chaps were British or from the King’s German Legion. The coalition
had 11,000 cavalry to France’s 7,000, but the French had 250 guns
against the coalition’s 150. Infantry numbers were very close
(50,000 coalition, 48,000 French).
The
distant but nearing Prussians had 50,000 men.
Wellington
adopted a defensive position along a ridge running east to west,
effectively hiding many of his men just over the crest. A hamlet and
château ahead of the ridge were fortified, as was a farmhouse.
Napoleon
drew up his forces symmetrically, as he couldn’t see Wellington’s
deployment and therefore couldn’t respond to it.
It
had rained heavily overnight, which led to the Prussians moving more
slowly than might’ve been the case, but also Napoleon setting up
the battle later as cavalry and artillery aren’t fond of soggy
ground and the French were unaware the Prussians would arrive so
quickly.
There
was fierce fighting to capture the château, Hougoumont, but it held
throughout the battle. However, the French enjoyed success elsewhere
on the field, putting the farmhouse under serious pressure and
pushing back the coalition. The Earl of Uxbridge commanded a heavy
cavalry charge to try and rescue the beleaguered infantry.
Initially,
the cavalry swept all before them and made great and bloody work of
the French, and although stiffer resistance was met, the infantry had
been heartened and two eagles were captured from the French.
However,
the horses were fatigued and any semblance of order seemed lost for
Uxbridge’s cavalry. Napoleon ordered a strong counter-charge of
cavalry and the British cavalry suffered heavy losses.
The
farmhouse, La Haye Sainte, finally fell because the men defending it
simply ran out of ammunition. But it had been held for most of the
day and its long resistance may have been the critical difference
between victory and defeat. Its capture enabled the French to advance
their guns and hammer the coalition squares, which had been formed to
(very successfully) repel the efforts of French cavalry to break
them.
Things
looked bleak. Changing from square formation would’ve left the
coalition vulnerable to the French cavalry (the coalition had little
strength in this arm remaining), but staying in them crammed men
close together and made them soft targets for the increasing number
of French guns firing their way.
Then
Blücher and 50,000 odd Prussians turned up. The French put up a
spirited resistance to this new threat, but were immediately on the
back foot.
Napoleon
attempted to rescue the situation by sending in his famed Imperial
Guard, who had never known defeat, to destroy the Wellington army
before the Prussians could make serious headway. The Imperial Guard
were driven back, however, and the battle was lost.
Wellington
had 15,000 casualties (dead or wounded), Blücher suffering about
half this, and Napoleon around 25,000.
As
well as being important in itself, Waterloo marked the final end of
Napoleon as a political power, the end of tumultuous wars that had
rocked Europe for decades, and an era (rare in Europe) of relative
peace.
The
Battle of Agincourt
The Battle of Agincourt
occurred during the latter stages of the rather lengthy Hundred
Years’ War (on 25 October). Henry V, King of England, had besieged
and taken Harfleur, and was marching his army of around 9,000 men
(some estimates have it as low as 6,000) to English-held Calais.
A French army shadowed
the English as they made their way to Calais. The English were in
pretty ropey shape, suffering dysentery, possessing little food and
having marched rather a long way in a short time. Henry decided to
engage in battle as those factors and the potential for French
reinforcements meant delaying would only strengthen his enemy and
weaken his own side. It was a brave decision, given the English were
outnumbered (estimates vary a lot, but one consistency is that the
English were substantially fewer in number than the French).
The battlefield was a
narrow strip of land between two woods. Henry’s army was over
three-quarters archers, armed with the famed English longbow. The
archers were on the flanks with men-at-arms and knights in the
centre.
The French had the
advantage of numbers, with estimates varying from 12,000 up to
36,000. Several hundred horsemen were on either wing, with the
men-at-arms, who outnumbered their English counterparts very
significantly, in the centre. The French also had thousands of
archers and crossbowmen but the narrowness of the battlefield and the
eagerness of the French nobility to capture noble Englishmen (and
thereby claim substantial ransoms) meant that the men-at-arms
advanced and the French archers played little role.
As well as being
narrow, the field was muddy, making it difficult for the French
men-at-arms to move quickly. The French advanced in three lines, with
no opportunity to outflank the English due to the terrain. The
English archers could scarcely miss, and the dead and wounded
severely slowed the French advance. They did meet the English foot
soldiers and push them back, initially, but the three French lines
mingled and became very congested, making the English archers’
lives very simple. In fact, it seems the French were so tightly
packed that they were unable to properly wield their weapons due to
lack of room (reminds me of the latter stage of Cannae).
The French cavalry
attempted to charge the archers, which was a disaster. Woodland
prevented flanking and the archers had hammered stakes in front of
their positions. Horses weren’t well-armoured and very easy to hit,
with wounded/dead horses a serious danger to their riders and the
advancing French foot soldiers.
When the archers ran
out of arrows they grabbed whatever melee weapons they had and
attacked the French men-at-arms, who were, as previously mentioned,
in dire straits already.
The French lost
thousands to capture or death, although this ended up being much the
same thing. Fearful of the French regrouping and the prisoners
becoming combatants once more, Henry ordered their slaughter, sparing
only the most noble (and therefore able to fetch the highest price
for ransom). Reportedly, the prisoners outnumbered their captors,
which is pretty unusual.
As with army numbers,
deaths are subject to a wide range of speculation, with English
losses from around 100 to 1,500, and French losses of around 4,000 to
10,000.
The victory on the
battlefield was total, and established Henry V as a great king in
popular imagination. However, the Hundred Years’ War ended up being
lost (if you’re English). Henry had all but won it, when he rather
unhelpfully dropped dead just a few months after the French king did
likewise. Had he lived, he may well have become King of England and
France. But, like Hannibal, great heroism and battlefield victories
do not necessarily mean winning wars.
It’s usually better
to win battles than not (although Pyrrhus might argue the point), but
strategic, logistics and diplomacy are crucial to winning wars, as is
just a little luck now and then.
Incidentally, sometime
next week I’ll be posting a cunning plan for the year ahead.
Thaddeus
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