OCCUPATION OF VERA CRUZ

 

The American Occupation of Vera Cruz

Capt. Niblack & staff, Vera Cruz Sailors on Water Front, V.C. Mexican band leading sailors from Vera Cruz

 

Woodrow Wilson, who from the Mexican view, should have stayed out of his neighbor’s family feud, felt he had a moral right to intervene in Mexico in 1914. Trained as a Presbyterian minister, the former college professor, and all-round moralist, saw it as his duty to “teach them to elect good men.” He could never understand why the Mexicans rejected him as a guide. The Mexicans resented his meddling, and moreover, what had started the Constitutionalist rebellion was U.S. meddling, specifically Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson’s role in Huerta’s coup at the behest of the dominant foreign economic interests. Wilson dispatched a friend, his campaign biographer, William Bayard Hale, to Mexico in 1914. Hale, a New York Timesreporter, spoke no Spanish and had never been in Mexico before. But Wilson trusted Hale, and Hale understood Wilson’s idealistic belief in constitutional democracy. Working undercover1, Hale unsurprisingly reported that Huerta was a tyrant with no popular support. It was control of the oil fields – and the revenues from the oil fields that let him buy foreign munitions – that kept him in power. William Bayard Hale was right: Huerta needed ammunition if he was to maintain power. Everyone knew Britain and Germany were about to go to war. The British Navy depended on Mexican oil, and the British – not caring much who controlled the country as long as they could pump oil – kept a mercenary army under their own general, Manual Perez, protecting the oil region. But Huerta’s forces controlled the ports, and the Germans were willing to supply arms to Huerta in return for blocking oil sales to Britain. Wilson, pro-British, but desperate to keep the United States out of the coming war, hoped that if neither the German nor the British had the clear advantage, the war could be avoided. United States intelligence officers had learned that the Germans were sending several shiploads of arms to Mexico. Carrenza and Huerta had both at various times threatened to cut off oil shipments – which would have kept the British out of the war, but also would cripple the U.S. economy (which even then was dependent on foreign oil imports). Carranza’s forces were slowly taking more and more control of the country, but were unlikely to capture Veracruz in time to stop the Germans from resupplying Huerta. On 6 April, six U.S. sailors were arrested in Tampico, still controlled by Huerta’s administration. The arrests were a mistake, and the sailors were returned to their ship. However, the United States was a new military power in the world, and U.S. officers had not always shown good judgment in Mexico. The United States Navy wanted respect: the ship’s captain demanded an apology from the Mexican Navy … and a 21-gun salute! The Mexicans, politely as possible, apologized for the sailors’ inconvenience, but refused the salute. The “insult to the Navy” received a fair amount of press in the United States. Given the feeling in the United States, this minor incident gave the President a plausible excuse to “avenge the national insult” – and incidentally to cut off Huerta’s arms supplies, and liberate Mexico from the tyrant. Or so it seemed. In 1914 the President of the United States was one of the few people in the world with a bedside telephone. He was still asleep at 6 A.M. on 21 April when he received a call confirming that the German ship, Yripanga, would be docking in Veracruz later that morning. Wilson had the White House operator set up a conference call between himself, his personal secretary, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan and Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels. The operator and the President weren’t the only ones still in their pajamas that morning. Daniels was a pacifist, and Bryan had religious objections to warfare. Still, they agreed with Wilson that the only way to stop the Yripanga was to take over Veracruz. If the French had once invaded the city over unpaid doughnuts in Mexico City, the United States could take the Customs’ House in Veracruz to avenge an insult to its navy’s honor in Tampico. Daniels had orders sent by radio (a very recent technology) to naval ships in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing went as planned. As the Spanish found out in 1828, the French in 183, Winfield Scott in 1847, and Maximiliano von Hapsburg in 1863, the “jarochas” do not welcome foreign invasions. In 1848, army cadets had defended Mexico City from United States marines. In 1914, the Naval Academy defended Veracruz. To protect the Marines, the Navy bombarded the city. Citizens joined the cadets. There were casualties on both sides, something a visably shaken and pale Wilson announced to the press the next day. Bryan, who felt personally responsible for the disaster, later resigned. The marines did complete their mission – occupying the Custom’s House. The Yripanga was an unarmed merchant freighter. Its captain was not about to enter a war zone. He turned his ship around. Mission accomplished. 2. Although meant to assist Carranza, even that plan went sour. What Wilson forgot was that Carranza was a very prickly nationalist and had never gotten over his boyhood meeting with Benito Juarez, who had struggled to keep all foreign governments out. Wilson, during his pajama conference, had not consulted the “legitimate” Consitituional Chief of Mexico before sending troops into the country. If the United States did not immediately evacuate Veracruz, the Constitutional Chief threatened to invade the United States, even if it meant joining forces with Huerta! He was bluffing, of course. Wilson was furious, but Carranza had made his point. He – not Huerta – was Mexico’s legitimate leader, and only he had the right to determine Mexico’s foreign policy. Henry Lane Wilson, who was still in Mexico City, was finally recalled. The United States sent a representative (not an ambassador3) to the Constitutionalist government, and other countries withdrew their recognition of Huerta’s government. The Marines took their time leaving Veracruz (they didn’t withdraw until November), by which time the whole occupation was pointless. Huerta was gone. The Revolution had gone on to a new phase by then. Worse yet for the Wilson administration, the Latin American nations had all sided with Carranza, and the United States was again seen as the aggressor in Mexico. Veracruz’s official name was changed after the invasion to “Three Times Heroic Veracruz” – its citizens had risen against invaders from Spain once, and from the United States twice. Harry S. Truman laid a wreath at the memorial to the Boy Heroes of Chapultepec in 1948. Truman was applauded at the time, but no one expected an apology for what had been a tragedy of war. The Veracruz invasion was seen differently. Mexico and the United States were not at war, and the intervention was simply for Woodrow Wilson’s political benefit. Bill Clinton offered an official apology in 1998. 1 Hale was an undercover agent for more than Wilson. He was also a German agent. 2 Sort of. The Yripanga unloaded down the coast in Huerta controlled Puerto Mexico. 3 To legalists like Wilson and Carranza, the terms used in foreign relations were important. Not being president, the constitutional chief could not receive an “ambassador”, but he could receive a “representative”. Historically the Mexican revolution is mostly overlooked in U. S. mainline education systems. Lets review this American History. During the decade of armed revolution (1910-20) the United States mounted two major and one minor armed incursions into Mexican territory: The Marines seized the port of Veracruz in April 1914; General Pershing led a sizable expedition deep into northern Mexico, fruitlessly pursuing Pancho Villa (1916-17); and American forces helped dislodge the ragtag Villista army from Ciudad Jua'rez in June 1919. In the book: Revolutionary Mexico, The Coming and Process of the Mexican Revolution, it described how the United States during the Mexican Revolution helped the ruling government by stockpiling weapons in Veracruz warehouses. Noteworthy for historians of communications technology and warfare, equipment from the United States sent to Veracruz included 'radio transmitters' and 'shortwave radio sets.' (Hart 1989, 301,302) This was when the use of radio in warfare was still being developed. Voice transmission only became practical 8 years before in 1906. The American intervention at Vera Cruz in April 1914 constituted the focal point of the U.S. government's effort to control events in Mexico. The Americans controlled an immense strategic stockpile of arms there. The military equipage included over 4,500 crates of armaments and filled three warehouses to overflowing, each of which measured 57.5 yards in width and length and over 21 feet in height. More arms including machine guns and artillery were placed in reinforced depositories, among them the Baluarte of Veracruz, the Benito Juarez lighthouse, and the San Juan de Ulloa fortress. After the Pershing expedition (1916-1917) in which 12,000 U.S. soldiers sought small groups of Villistas, U.S. troops entered Mexico, without declaration of war, at least three times in 1918 and six in 1919. In August 1918 American and Mexican troops fought at Nogales. The United States occupation of Veracruz, which began with the Battle of Veracruz, lasted for six months and was a response to the Tampico Affair of April 9, 1914. The incident came in the midst of poor diplomatic relations between Mexico and the United States, related to the ongoing Mexican Revolution. After the Tampico Affair, where nine American sailors were arrested by the Mexican government for entering off-limit areas in Tampico, Mexico,[2] President Woodrow Wilson ordered the United States Navy to prepare for the occupation of the port of Veracruz. While waiting for authorization of Congress to carry out such action, Wilson was alerted to a German delivery of weapons for Victoriano Huerta due to arrive to the port on April 21. As a result, Wilson issued an immediate order to seize the port's customs office and confiscate the weaponry. Huerta had taken over the Mexican government with the assistance of the American ambassador Henry Lane Wilson during a coup d'état in early 1913 known as La decena trágica. The Wilson administration's answer to this was to declare Huerta a usurper of the legitimate government, embargo arms shipments to Huerta, and support the Constitutional Army of Venustiano Carranza. The arms shipment to Mexico, in fact, originated from the Remington Arms company in the U.S. The arms and ammunition were to be shipped via Hamburg, Germany, to Mexico allowing Remington Arms a means of skirting the American arms embargo.[3]   On the morning of April 21, 1914, warships of the United States Atlantic Fleet under the command of Rear Admiral Frank Friday Fletcher, began preparations for the seizure of the Veracruz waterfront. By 11:30, with whaleboats swung over the side, 502 U.S. Marines from the 2nd Advanced Base Regiment, 285 armed Navy sailors, known as "Bluejackets," from the battleship USS Florida and a provisional battalion composed of the Marine detachments of the Florida and her sister ship USS Utah (BB-31) began landing operations. Plowing through the surf in whaleboats toward pier 4, Veracruz's main wharf, a large crowd of Mexican and American citizens gathered to watch the spectacle. The invaders encountered no resistance as they exited the whaleboats, formed ranks into a Marine and a seaman regiment, and began marching toward their objectives. This initial show of force was enough to prompt the retreat of the Mexican forces led by General Gustavo Maass. In the face of this, Mexican Commodore Manuel Azueta encouraged cadets of the Veracruz Naval Academy to take up the defense of the port for themselves. Also, about 50 line soldiers of the Mexican Army remained behind to fight the invaders along with the citizens of Veracruz.   History of Mexico This article is part of a series Pre-Columbian Mexico Spanish conquest Colonial period War of Independence First Empire First Republic War with Texas Pastry War Mexican–American War The Reform Reform War French intervention Second Empire Restored Republic Porfiriato Revolution La decena trágica Plan of Guadalupe Tampico Affair Occupation of Veracruz Cristero War Maximato Petroleum Nationalization Mexican miracle Mexico 68 La Década Perdida 1982 economic crisis Zapatista Insurgency 1994 economic crisis The end of the PRI's rule Battle of Veracruz     Damaged entryway to a high school adjacent to the Veracruz Naval Academy. The bluejackets were instructed to capture the customs house, post and telegraph offices, while the Marines went for the railroad terminal, roundhouse and yard, the cable office and the powerplant. Soon arms were being distributed to the population, who were largely untrained in the use of Mausers and had trouble finding the correct ammunition. In short, the defense of the city by its populace was hindered by the lack of central organization and a lack of adequate supplies. The defense of the city also included the release of the prisoners held at the San Juan de Ulúa prison. Although the landing had been nearly unopposed as U.S. forces marched into the city, Veracruz was quickly becoming a battleground. Just after noon, fighting began with the 2nd Advance Base Regiment under Colonel Wendell C. Neville becoming heavily involved in a firefight in the rail yards. While the forces ashore slowly fought their way forward, Admiral Fletcher landed the USS Utah's 384 man bluejacket battalion, the only other unit at his disposal. By mid afternoon, the Americans had occupied all of their objectives and Admiral Fletcher called a general halt to the advance, initially hoping that a cease fire could be arranged. That hope however, rapidly faded as he could find no one to bargain with and all troops in the city were instructed to remain on the defensive pending the arrival of reinforcements.     The senior officers of the 1st Marine Brigade photographed at Veracruz in 1914. Front row, left to right: Lt. Col. Wendell C. Neville; Col. John A. Lejeune; Col. Littleton W. T. Waller, Commanding; and Maj. Smedley Butler. On the night of the 21st, Fletcher decided that he had no choice but to expand the initial operation to include the entire city, not just the waterfront.[4] Five additional U.S. battleships and two cruisers had reached Veracruz during the hours of darkness and they carried with them Major Smedley Butler and his Marine Battalion which had been rushed from Panama. The battleship's seaman battalions were quickly organized into a regiment 1,200 men strong, supported by the ship's Marine detachments providing an additional 300-man battalion. These newly arrived forces went ashore around midnight to await the morning's advance. At 07:45, the advance began. The Leathernecks adapted to street fighting, which was a novelty to them. The sailors were less adroit at this style of fighting. A regiment led by Navy Captain E. A. Anderson advanced on the Mexican Naval Academy in parade ground formation, making his men easy targets for the cadets barricaded inside. This attack was repulsed with casualties, and the advance was only saved when three warships in the harbor, the USS Prairie, San Francisco, and Chester, pounded the Academy with their long guns for a few minutes, silencing all resistance and killing 15 of the cadets inside. That afternoon, the First Advanced Base Regiment, originally bound for Tampico, Tamaulipas, came ashore under the command of Colonel John A. Lejeune and by 17:00, U.S. troops had secured the town square and were in complete control of Veracruz. Some pockets of resistance continued to occur around the port, mostly in the form of hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, but by April 24 all fighting had ceased. A third provisional regiment of Marines, assembled at Philadelphia, arrived on May 1 under the command of Colonel Littleton W. T. Waller, who assumed overall command of the Brigade, by that time numbering some 3,141 officers and men. By then, the sailors and Marines of the Fleet had returned to their ships and an Army Brigade had landed. Marines and soldiers continued to garrison the city until the U.S. withdrawal on November 23, which occured after Argentina, Brazil and Chile (the three ABC Powers) were able to settle the issues between the two nations. Aftermath José Azueta is considered a Mexican hero for his actions during the battle The son of Commodore Azueta, Lieutenant José Azueta, was wounded during the defense of the Naval Academy building. A cadet himself, José Azueta was manning a machine gun placed outside the building, facing the incoming American troops on his own and causing a number of casualties. José Azueta was rescued from the battlefield after sustaining two bullet wounds and taken to his home. After the battle, Admiral Fletcher heard of Azueta's actions in battle and sent his personal doctor to take care of him. However, Azueta refused medical services offered by the occupation army and only allowed local Dr. Rafael Cuervo Xicoy to examine him. Dr. Xicoy lacked medical supplies to assist Azueta properly. Azueta died of his wounds on May 10, Mexico's Mother's Day. During his funeral hundreds of citizens marched holding his coffin on their shoulders to the city's cemetery in open defiance of directives from the occupation army forbidding the right of assembly. U.S. Army Brigadier General Frederick Funston was placed in control of the administration of the port. Assigned to his staff as an intelligence officer was a young Captain Douglas MacArthur.[6] While Huerta and Carranza officially objected to the occupation, neither was able to oppose it effectively, being more preoccupied by events of the Mexican Revolution. Huerta was eventually overthrown and Carranza's faction took power. The occupation, however, brought the two countries to the brink of war and worsened U.S.-Mexican relations for many years. The ABC Powers held the Niagara Falls peace conference in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, on May 20 to avoid an all-out war over this incident. A plan was formed in June for the US troops to withdraw from Veracruz after General Huerta surrendered the reins of his government to a new regime and Mexico assured the United States that it would receive no indemnity for it's losses in the recent chaotic events. [7] Huerta soon afterwards left office and gave his government to Carranza. Carranza, who was still quite unhappy with US troops occupying Veracruz,[7] rejected the rest of the agreement.[7] In November of 1914, following the Convention of Aguascalientes, Carranza left office for a short period and handed control to Eulalio Gutiérrez Ortiz. Ortiz accepted the rest of the agreement and US troops departed on November 23.[7] Despite their previous spat, diplomatic ties between the US and the Carranza regime greatly extended following the depature from Veracruz.[7] After the fighting ended, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels ordered that fifty-six Medals of Honor be awarded to participants in this action, the most for any single action before or since. This amount was half as many as had been awarded for the Spanish-American War, and close to half the number that would be awarded during World War I and the Korean War. A critic claimed that the excess medals were awarded by lot.[8][9] Major Smedley Butler, a recipient of one of the nine Medals of Honor awarded to Marines, later tried to return it, being incensed at this "unutterable foul perversion of Our Country's greatest gift"[citation needed] and claiming he had done nothing heroic. The Department of the Navy told him to not only keep it, but wear it. Lt. Azueta and a Naval Military School cadet, Cadet Midshipman Virgilio Uribe, who also died during the fighting, are now part of the list of honor read by all branches of the Mexican Armed Forces in all military occasions, alongside the six Niños Héroes of the Military College (nowadays the Heroic Military Academy) who died in defense of the nation during the Battle of Chapultepec on Sept. 13, 1846. As a result of the brave defense put up by the Naval School cadets and faculty, it has now become the Heroic Naval Military School of Mexico in their honor. Hall of Fame Major League Baseball star Sam Rice served in the incident before he played Major League Baseball. He joined the Navy after his entire family was killed in a tornado.

Vera Cruz -- Front door of Naval Ac. Bombarded by CHESTER & PRAIRIE (LOC) Bain News Service,, publisher. Vera Cruz -- Front door of Naval Ac. Bombarded by CHESTER & PRAIRIE [between ca. 1910 and ca. 1915] )   ) ) ) Between 6 July 1913 and 24 September 1915 USS Louisiana made three voyages from east coast ports to Mexican waters. On the first (6 July to 29 December 1913), she stood by to protect American lives and property and to help enforce both the Monroe Doctrine and the arms embargo which had been established to discourage further revolutionary disturbances in Mexico. Her second voyage (14 April to 8 August 1914) came at a time when tension between Mexico and the United States was at its peak during the shelling and occupation of Vera Cruz. Louisiana sailed a third time for Mexican waters to protect American interests again from 17 August to 24 September 1915. Returning from the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana was placed in reserve at Norfolk and, until the United States entered World War I, she served as a training ship for midshipmen and naval militiamen on summer cruises.

 

 

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BATTLE OF AGINCOURT

 

 

BATTLE OF AGINCOURT

the fields of Agincourt Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember with advantages What feats he did that day: then shall our names. Familiar in his mouth as household words Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd. - Shakespeare. Henry V

 

 

Legend says the Battle of Agincourt was won by stalwart English archers. It was not. In the end it was won by men using lead-weighted hammers, poleaxes, mauls and falcon-beaks, the ghastly paraphernalia of medieval hand-to-hand fighting. It was fought on a field knee-deep in mud and it was more of a massacre than a battle. Laurence Olivier's film of Shakespeare's Henry V shows French knights charging on horseback, but very few men were mounted at Agincourt. The French came on foot and the battle was reduced to men hitting other armoured men with hammers, maces and axes.  Crowning glory: Kenneth Branagh in his film version of Shakespeare's Henry V dramatising the 15th-century Battle of Agincourt. A sword would not penetrate armour and did not have the weight to knock a man off his feet, but a poleaxe (a long-handled axe or hammer, topped with a fearsome spike) would fell him fast, and then it was easy to raise the victim's visor and slide a knife through an eye. That was how hundreds of men died; their last sight on earth a dagger's point. It is not a tale of chivalry, but rather of armoured men hacking at each other to break limbs and crush skulls. At the battle's height, when Henry V expected an attack on his rear that never materialised, he ordered the newly captured French prisoners to be killed. They were murdered. Over the weekend, during a conference at the Medieval History Museum in Agincourt, French academics met to declare that English soldiers acted like 'war criminals' during the battle, setting fire to prisoners and killing French noblemen who had surrendered. The French 'were met with barbarism by the English', said the museum's director Christophe Gilliot. The French pronouncement smacks of bias, but what is certain is that Agincourt was filthy, horrible and merciless. Yet it is still celebrated as a golden moment in England's history. Why do we remember it? Why has this battle galvanised English hearts over the centuries? These are questions I came to ask as I researched my new novel Azincourt - spelled as it is in France - and discovered just what an extraordinary event it was. Part of the legend about the archers is certainly true. Most of the English army were archers and their arrows caused huge damage, although they never delivered the knock-out blow it is claimed. Henry V was also an inspirational leader. He fought in the front rank and part of his crown was knocked off. Eighteen Frenchmen had taken an oath to kill him and all of them died at Henry's feet, slaughtered by the King or by his bodyguard. And, despite recent claims to the contrary, it seems the English were horribly outnumbered. In the cold, wet dawn of October 25, 1415, no one could have expected Henry's army to survive the day. He had about 6,000 men, more than 5,000 of them archers, while the French numbered at least 30,000 and were so confident that, before the battle was joined, they sent away some newly arrived reinforcements. By dusk on that Saint Crispin's Day, Henry's small army had entered legend. But the English should never have been at Agincourt, which lies 25 miles south of Calais. England was in the thick of the 100 Years' War with France, and Henry had invaded Normandy in the hope of making a quick conquest of Harfleur, a strategic port. Yet the town's stubborn defence delayed him and by the siege's end his army had been struck by dysentery. Sick men were dying and the campaign season was ending as winter drew in. Sensible advice suggested that Henry cut his losses and sail back to England. But he had borrowed huge amounts of money to invade France and all he had to show for it was one gun-battered port. Going home looked suspiciously like defeat. He instead marched north to Calais with probably nothing more in mind than cocking a snook at the French who, though they had gathered an army, had done nothing to relieve the brave defenders of Harfleur. The Battle of Agincourt, as depicted in the Channel 4 show The World's Worst Century Henry wanted to humiliate the French by flaunting his banners, yet I doubt he truly wanted to face that large French army with his own depleted numbers. The French had been supine all summer, but now, suddenly, they woke and moved to block Henry's path. Henry tried to go round them. A march meant to last eight days stretched to 16. The English exhausted their food, they were ill with dysentery and soaked from the continual autumn rains. They were driven far inland in search of a place to cross the River Somme and then trudged north, only to discover the French army waiting for them on a muddy field between the woods of Azincourt and Tramecourt. The English were trapped. The French were barring the English road home, so Henry had to fight. He hoped the French would attack him and he ordered his archers to protect themselves from knights on horseback by making a thicket of sharpened stakes to impale the stallions' chests. But the French remained motionless, so Henry was forced to advance on them. Did he really say 'Let's go, fellows!' as one contemporary claimed? It seems so, yet whatever his words, the English plucked up their stakes and waded through the mud to get close to the French line. And the French, even though they must have seen that the English were in disarray, did nothing. They let Henry's men come to within extreme bowshot distance where, once again, the stakes were hammered into the ground and the battle line was reformed on a newly ploughed field that had been soaked by constant rain. If I had to suggest one cause for the French defeat, it would be mud. The two sides were now little more than a couple of hundred paces apart. The English, astonishingly, had been given time to reposition themselves, and now the archers began the battle by shooting a volley of arrows. At least 5,000 of them, most converging from the flanks, slashed into the French, and it seems that the shock of that first arrow strike prompted the French to attack. A handful of Frenchmen advanced on horseback, trying to get among the archers, but mud, stakes and arrows easily defeated those knights. Some of the horses, maddened by pain, galloped back through the French men-at-arms, tearing their ranks into chaos. Some 8,000 Frenchmen were now advancing on foot. No one knows how long it took them to cover the 200 or more paces which separated them from Henry's men-at-arms, but it was not a quick approach. They were wading through mud made treacherous by deeply ploughed furrows and churned to quagmire by horses' hooves. And they were being struck by arrows so that they were forced to close their helmets' visors. They could see little through the tiny eye- slits, their breathing was stifled and still the arrows came. The conventional verdict suggests that the French were cut down by those arrow storms, but the chief effect of the arrows was to delay and, by forcing them to close their visors, half-blind the attackers. The French knew about English and Welsh archers. The longbow could shoot an arrow more than 200 paces with an accuracy that was unmatched till the rifled gun barrel was invented. At Agincourt some barbed broadhead arrows (which were designed to cause maximum damage and could fell cavalry) would have been shot at those few horses that attacked the English line. But most were bodkins, long and slender arrowheads without barbs that were made to pierce armour. A good archer could easily shoot 15 arrows a minute, so 5,000 archers could loose 75,000 arrows in one minute; more than 1,000 a second. Why did the French not deploy their own longbowmen? Because to shoot a longbow demanded great strength (they were at least three times as powerful as a modern competition bow) and considerable skill. It took years for a man to develop the muscles and technique, and for reasons that have never been understood, such men emerged in Britain, but not on the Continent. So as the first French line advanced it was being struck repeatedly by arrows, and even if a bodkin did not penetrate plate armour its strike was sufficient to knock a man backwards. If the advance took four minutes (and I suspect it took longer), then about 300,000 arrows would have been shot at the 8,000 men. A page entitled 'Agincourt' from John Lennon's illustrated schoolbook, 'Anthology', created when he was 12 Even if the English were short of arrows and cut their shooting rate to one-third, then they would still have driven 100,000 arrows against the struggling 8,000, and if the legend is correct, then not one of those Frenchmen should have survived. Yet they did survive, and most of them reached the English line and started fighting with shortened lances, poleaxes and war-hammers. The fight became a struggle of hacking and thrusting, slaughter in the mud. But if so many arrows had been shot, how did the French survive to reach the English and start that murderous brawl? The answer probably lies in the eternal arms race. Armour technology had advanced and the French plate armour was mostly good enough to resist the English arrow-heads. And how good were those heads? Arrow-making was an industrial-scale activity in England, yet few men understood what happened when iron was hardened into steel and many of the English arrows crumpled on contact with the enemy's armour. So the many reached the few, but the many were exhausted by mud, some were wounded and the English, enjoying the luxury of raised visors, cut them down. What seems to have happened was that the front rank of the French, exhausted by slogging through the mud, battered and wounded by arrows, disorganised by panicked horses and by stumbling over wounded men, became easy victims for the English men-at-arms. There would have been the ghastly sound of hammers crushing helmets, the screams of men falling, and suddenly the leading French rank being chopped down and its fallen men becoming an obstacle to those behind who, being thrust forward by the rearmost ranks, tripped on the newly fallen bodies and so became victims themselves. One witness claimed that the pile of dead and dying was as tall as a man, an obvious exaggeration, but undoubtedly the first French casualties made a rampart to protect the English men-at-arms. The French had attacked the centre of the English line where the King, the nobles and the gentry stood. Their aim had been to take prisoners and so become rich from ransoms, but now that centre was a killing ground and, to escape it, the French widened their attack to assault the archers who had probably exhausted their arrows. Yet the archers had been equipped with poleaxes and other handweapons, and they fought back.   A painting of Henry V, who is described by Bernard Cornwell as an 'inspirational leader' The bowmen wore little armour, and in the glutinous mud they were far more mobile than their plate-armoured opponents. Any man capable of hauling a warbow's string was hugely strong and a battle-axe in his hands would be a ghastly weapon. So the archers joined the hand-to-hand fight and the tired French were killed in their hundreds. The second French line, another 8,000 men on foot, tried to support their beleaguered colleagues, but they too were cut down and the rest of the French melted away. The extraordinary, awful battle was over. The field was now groaning with horribly wounded men; men lying in piles, men suffocating in mud, dead men, blood-drenched men. Perhaps as many as 5,000 French died that day, while English losses were in the hundreds, maybe not even as many as 200. The few had gained their extraordinary triumph. There were other victories, like Poitiers in 1356, that were more decisive, and it is arguable that Agincourt achieved very little; it would take another five years of warfare before Henry won the concessions he wanted from the French and even then his premature death proved those gains worthless. Shakespeare's heart-stirring Henry V helped ensure the battle's place in English folklore, but Shakespeare was playing to an audience that already knew the tale and wanted to hear it again. Agincourt was well-known long before Shakespeare made it immortal, yet even so there were those other great triumphs like Poitiers and Crecy, so why Agincourt?   It must have started with the stories told by survivors. They had expected annihilation and gained victory. It might even be true that the archers, when the battle was over, taunted the French by holding up the two string-fingers that the enemy had threatened to slice off every captured bowman - the V- sign that is common parlance today. The men in Henry's army must have believed they had been part of a miracle. The few had destroyed the many, and most of those few were archers. They were not lords and knights and gentry, but butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers from the shires. They were the ordinary men of England and Wales. They had met the awesome power of France in hand-to-hand fighting and they had won. The battle is part of the binding of England, the emergence of the common man as a vital part of the nation, and those common men returned to England with their tales, their plunder and their pride. The stories were told in taverns over and over, how a few hungry, trapped men had gained an amazing victory. The story is still told because it has such power. It is a tale of the common man achieving greatness. Instead of being outnumbered five to one by French forces, as tradition tells, his bedraggled English army may actually have had an even fight on their hands.   An engraving depicting the Battle of Agincourt of 1415 in which Henry V defeated the French. Historians who have combed through complex tax and military records claimed yesterday - the 594th anniversary of the battle - that the stunning scale  of Henry’s win was exaggerated by his spin doctors for propaganda purposes. And it was a story that Shakespeare happily repeated, dubbing Henry’s troops ‘we few, we happy few, we band of brothers’ who delivered an extraordinary victory against all odds on St Crispin’s Day, October 25, 1415. The outcome was certainly shocking, for the French army was made up of heavily  armoured nobles, while the English were exhausted, depleted by battle losses and wracked by dysentery. To Shakespeare, it was the moment a feckless youth turned into a great king, leading his army to victory against seemingly impossible odds.  They  accuse King Henry V of giving his permission for captives to be burnt to death and ordering his bodyguards to execute a noble who had surrendered.   Romantic view of history? Kenneth Branagh playing Henry V in a film of Shakespeare's play in which he leads his army to victory against impossible odds. The battle  -  part of the Hundred Years War  -  has become a byword for English heroism in the face of insurmountable odds. But nearly 600 years later, historians will tell a conference at the Medieval History Museum in Agincourt that the stories that Henry's troops were hugely outnumbered are a lie. The museum's director, distinguished French historian Christophe Gilliot, said: 'There's been a distortion of the facts and this conference will attempt to set the record straight.   Brave or brutal? An illustration of the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 in which the English were always thought to have been hugely outnumbered. 'We have historians arriving from all over France, and all will produce hard facts concerning the battle. Inspired leader: A portrait of Henry V 'At the very least the English forces acted dishonourably. The Middle Ages were a very violent time, of course, but some might accuse the English of acting like what might now be called war criminals.' The Battle of Agincourt was immortalised by Shakespeare and is the centrepiece of his play Henry V. It took place on Friday, October 25 in 1415 after a force led by Henry engaged the French at Agincourt, a small village not far from Calais in northern France. The traditional story is that the English army, made up mainly of archers using longbows, massacred a vast force of French noblemen. But detailed bureaucratic records from the army of the French king, Charles VI, reveal it was made up of 9,000 travelling soldiers, perhaps with another 3,000 local troops. This compares with a total force of 12,000 which travelled to France with Henry  -  although 3,000 were lost during the preceding siege of Harfleur. English chroniclers writing in the years following the battle wrongly claimed that there were as many as 150,000 French, compared with 6,000 English soldiers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, no English academics have been invited to today's conference in France. But Professor Anne Curry, a military historian from Southampton University, admitted that many accounts of the battle have been exaggerated to give the impression of 'plucky little England against the evil French'. Although Henry triumphed at Agincourt, he never succeeded in his ultimate aim  -  taking the French throne. What isn’t at issue is that the French became bogged down in treacherous mud after being lured by Henry’s brilliant tactics into a narrow field, where they  were devastated by thousands of arrows from English longbow men and  outmaneuvered by common soldiers with much lighter equipment.   William Shakespeare fed the 'against-the-odds' story But what researchers have now concluded is that rather than facing a force five times as big, the English could not have been outnumbered by more than two to one.  And the two sides may in fact have been more evenly matched, according to historian Anne Curry from the University of Southampton, who is leading the study. She believes French forces numbered no more than 12,000 - basing her estimate on military pay records, muster rolls, ships’ logs, published rosters of the  wounded and dead, and wartime tax levies - while Henry probably had at least  8,700 men. Others agree. 'It was not the complete French power at Agincourt,' said  Bertrand Schnerb, a professor of medieval history at the University of Lille, who estimated that there were 12,000 to 15,000 French soldiers. According to these new versions, after the battle the English crown launched a PR effort to magnify the victory by exaggerating the difference in numbers. This is clearly disappointing news for Britons who have been delighting for centuries at the idea that Agincourt delivered a David v Goliath walloping to the traditional French foe. 'It’s just a myth, but it’s a myth that’s part of the British psyche,' Ms. Curry said, adding that academics had long been reluctant to challenge Shakespeare’s famous lines and a central tenet of English pride. SHAKESPEARE'S WORDS 'And gentlemen in England now-a-bed Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.' But all is not lost. Clifford J. Rogers, a professor of history at the U.S. Military Academy at West  Point, told the New York Times today that Shakespeare was right.  The English had a total of 6,000 - 1,000 men-at-arms in heavy steel armour from  head to toe and 5,000 lightly armoured men with longbows, he said. The French  had 10,000 troops, each with an attendant servant who could also fight, plus 4,000 men with crossbows and other fighters – totalling more than 24,000. As French lines broke down under volley after volley of arrows and panic set  in, English archers killed thousands by stabbing them in the neck, eyes,  armpits and groin through gaps in the armour, or bludgeoned the Frenchmen to  death. Against the odds: Agincourt, as portrayed in Kenneth Branagh's film of Shakespeare's Henry V. Instead of an abstract idea of '6,000 men', you suddenly begin to form pictures in your head of what this band of brothers might have looked like. Names are powerfully suggestive, and they give these ordinary heroes a startling, poignant reality. Among their numbers, we find such good old English names as Robert Smith, archer, serving under Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and James Barton, man-at-arms, serving under Sir John Dabridgecourt. They came from every shire, we can tell, because often their surnames simply record their place of origin, such as Lancashire lad, Richard of Bolton, or Richard of Kelby, from the tiny hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire, not far from Grantham. From farther afield come more Celtic names such as Thomas Pentryth, surely a Cornishman, and David ap Llewellyn Lloyd, who might just have been Welsh, like many of the heroes of Agincourt. Others are somehow quintessentially medieval, such as Watt Hunter, or Hodgekin Somerton. The priceless muster rolls on which these richly atmospheric names appear survive because busybody bureaucrats were just as active in the Middle Ages as they are today. The English exchequer, which controlled the state finances, wanted to know exactly which soldiers had served where, and so kept scrupulous records. This is why we know now about Lord Despencer, whose military career had started at the age of 12; Sir Thomas Erpingham, who had fought from Scotland to Spanish Castile; and Thomas Gloucestre, whose soldiering lasted an astonishing 43 years, ranging from 'the vasty fields of France', as Shakespeare calls them in Henry V, to the sun-baked plains and valleys of Palestine. Yet it's safe to assume that the redoubtable Thomas Gloucestre never saw combat quite like Agincourt. Enlarge   Carnage: A map of Agincourt where  the bloody battle took place. A cold, wet morning, October 25, 1415, St Crispin's Day. The sun edging up over the thickly forested countryside to the east, not far from the River Somme. And in a muddy ploughed field, a small, bedraggled army of Englishmen, waiting for their inevitable end. Henry V had led his men into France back in August, late in the campaigning season. They had besieged and finally captured the port of Harfleur, but it had taken longer than expected. And now it was time to retreat, fast, before the onset of the bitter medieval winter. Their ships were waiting for them at Calais, 280 miles away, and the Channel was becoming rougher by the day in the October storms. Meanwhile, somewhere in the hinterland, a vast French army was gathering. But if they could just make it to Calais and the ships... They came so close. But in mid-October, as they marched north between the little villages of Agincourt and Tramecourt, across some fields hemmed in on either side by thick woodland, they came to a sudden halt. Across their line of retreat lay a vast French army. They were cut off and vastly outnumbered. Henry commanded about 6,000 men, 5,000 of them only lightly armoured archers. Before them stood an enemy army of some 30,000, ready to fight on their home soil and burning to avenge the previous defeats of Crecy and Poitiers. The flower of arrogant but ferocious French chivalry, pennants fluttering, swords gleaming, knights grimly smiling. Many of the weary English must have crossed themselves and bowed their heads in the rain when they saw that sight. They must have thought of their loved ones. For there would surely be no going home now. On the eve of battle, the chronicles tell us, many of the English confessed their sins, ready for their deaths on the morrow. Nevertheless, the next day, the Feast of St Crispin, under the inspiration of their great warrior-king, Henry V, they summoned their last reserves of energy and spirit. Outnumbered as they were, they could not hope to attack, only defend. So they set sharpened staves in the soft ground, which would break the French charge and impale their horses. Then they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, butted their long-handled pikes into the earth, and waited for that thunderous onslaught. It never came. The French nobles were quarrelling among themselves about who would charge first. So Henry gave his men the astonishing order, against all the rules of engagement for an outnumbered force. Attack! And the English pulled up their defensive staves and began to march forward. The territory gained proved crucial. Rapidly, the English set up a new line of staves, now only 200yards from the enemy. Well within bowshot. Their men-at-arms stood shoulder-to-shoulder once more, hands clenched white-knuckled around the long ashen shafts of their pikes, raindrops beading on their steel helmets and running down into their eyes, trying not to shake with fear. Along the lines, many faces of beardless boys, some as young as 12. And hanging over them all, the terrible sense of dread before a battle. Gregory More, archer. Thomas Langford, man-at-arms. Sir John Grey, Knight. They would stand or fall together. Battle: A trained archer could shoot around 15 arrows a minute, so a force of 5,000 could shoot a staggering 1,000 arrows per second. King Henry gave the order and the English bowmen began to drop volley after volley of arrows on to the stationary French. A trained archer could shoot around 15 arrows a minute, so a force of 5,000 could shoot a staggering 1,000 arrows per second. The rain of arrows forced the French to move forward and attack. Since the field was hemmed in by woodland, any attempt at outflanking was impossible. They could only march forward, heavily armoured, through the saturated mud. Crossing even 200 yards in such conditions was exhausting. Some of them sank up to their knees, some even drowned, according to eyewitnesses. And as they approached, that arrow storm from the English longbows became ever more lethal, shooting with a power and accuracy that would be unmatched until the invention of the rifle. At last they reached the English line, and the real fighting began. Men on foot, facing each other with lead-weighted maces, war hammers, bill hooks, falcon-beaks ending in terrible pointed spikes, and pole axes, usually used for killing cattle. And then it was a matter of bone-crunching, slashing and clubbing your enemy into the mud. Now those horny-handed, barrel-chested ploughmen and blacksmiths from the English shires, wielding little more than glorified clubs, proved themselves more than a match for French chivalry. The left flank under the command of Lord Camoys came under particularly fierce attack from the French. Yet Camoys and his men stood their ground unyielding: men such as Simon Codyngton and John Colmer, Thomas Fitzhenry, and the aptly named John Bold. A project by the University of Reading, the Medieval Soldier Database, has put online the records of 250,000 soldiers who fought through the Hundred Years War They fought without mercy, trapped and outnumbered as they were. A second French wave was sent in, but as in the most atrocious scenes of carnage from the trench warfare of World War I - which Agincourt in some ways resembled - the dead bodies of their fallen comrades only made their advance harder. Another key to English survival was the extraordinary fighting spirit of Henry V himself. An elite of 18 French knights, an assassination squad, had sworn to make directly for him across the battlefield and kill him, or die in the attempt. Theydied. All 18 of them, at the very feet of the warrior-king, cut down either by him or his bodyguard. He fought in the front line for much of the day, taking many a blow, one of which demolished part of his crown. And his resolute cries of 'Rally!' and 'Stand firm, men of England!' contributed immeasurably to the victory. Yet along with his encouraging cries there were the sickening sounds of metal bludgeoning into flesh, the screams of horses, men drowning in a quagmire of blood. If a Frenchman fell to the ground, injured or not, he would struggle to rise again in the sucking mud. And in a trice, an Englishman would be kneeling by his side like a ministering angel of death, flipping up his visor and dispatching him with a quick stab of a blade to his eyes. Late in the battle, with the English slowly beginning to feel that they might yet survive and make it back to Calais after all, Henry feared that the French were going to try a final attack from the rear. So he gave orders for all prisoners to be executed, in case they should be freed to fight again. But the French had had enough. Leaving at least 5,000 dead, against an English total of about 120, they fled the field. Last year, French academics accused the English of having committed 'war crimes' at Agincourt. Applying 21st-century standards to the 15th century is the kind of stupidity which only the most eminent French academic could rise to. You might as well complain that the French knights, in their turn, had some simply frightful ideas about the role of women. And as for their views on Jews... The truth is that Agincourt was an astonishing victory, a testament to those centuries- old English qualities of sheer determination and stubborn refusal to acknowledge when we're beaten: a rock on which many more glamorous armies have broken. Indeed, it is precisely because Agincourt was so atrociously unglamorous, so grim and bloody and mud-spattered, that it was so heroic: ordinary and exhausted men, achieving something quite extraordinary. Why the French lost the Battle of Agincourt: Heavy armour made troops too exhausted to fight. It was a large scale medieval-day equivalent of David and Goliath. On the battlefields of Agincourt, the French outnumbered the English by up to six to one with a massive army of 36,000 soldiers. Yet despite their numeric superiority, being better equipped and fighting on home turf the French could not triumph over Henry V and his 6,000 longbow archers, dismounted knights and men-at-arms. They hit problems with their armour which, historians now believe, was their Achilles' heel, making them so exhausted that they were unable to fight. Old meets new: A volunteer in French Medieval armour walks on a running machine. Historians now believe the French lost the Battle Of Agincourt because their heavy armour left them too exhausted to fight. As they advanced across the fields of sticky mud, trampled down by the sheer volume of numbers, their breathing was restricted and tiredness kicked in quickly. Their burden was much greater than the modern soldiers' backpack leading experts to believe that the armour played a decisive role in the 1415 battle. The findings come after scientists from the Royal Armouries, Leeds, monitored four men, aged around 36, who carry out re-enactments using 15th century armour from different countries in Europe. Their oxygen consumption and energy expenditure were measured as they did a range of walking and running exercises in suits weighing between 30 and 50kg. The findings, published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, showed that the net energy cost of walking was 2.1 to 2.3 times higher when wearing armour than when not wearing armour while running incurred a 1.9 times higher energy cost. Post-Second World War soldiers can carry a similar weight but, unlike a backpack, armour with interlocking steel plates may have played a part. Researchers from the University of Leeds found that 15th Century knights used twice as much energy as modern soldiers - solely because of the weight of their armour. Dr Graham Askew, lead researcher from the University of Leeds, said: 'We found that carrying this kind of load spread across the body requires a lot more energy than carrying the same weight in a backpack. 'This is because, in a suit of armour, the limbs are loaded with weight, which means it takes more effort to swing them with each stride. 'If you're wearing a backpack, the weight is all in one place and swinging the limbs is easier.' The energy costs associated with wearing armour were higher than those predicted by experiments in which loads are added to different parts of the body. The reason may be due to the impact of armour on breathing, the study suggests. Rather than taking deeper breaths when they exerted themselves, the four volunteers took larger numbers of shallower breaths. 'Being wrapped in a tight shell of armour may have made soldiers feel safe, but you feel breathless as soon as you begin to move around in medieval armour and this would likely limit a soldier's resistance to fight,' said co-author Dr Federico Formenti, from Oxford University. Heavy armour may not only have contributed to the French defeat at Agincourt, but also at the Battle of Crecy in 1346, experts believe. On this occasion the French knights fought the English and lost after an exhausting march lasting several days. 'Together with numbers and condition of soldiers, equipment availability, battle strategy and terrain, the high energetic cost of movement in armour could have contributed to the outcome of medieval battles,' the scientists wrote. Retelling: Kenneth Branagh, pictured here in a scene after the Battle Of Agincourt, plays Henry V in the 1989 film of the same name The numbers are disputed but the French far outnumbered the English on the field and should have had an easy home victory. Henry deployed his fighters across a 750-yard piece of land between the woods of Tramecourt and Agincourt. They had around three hours of sunlight to arrange themselves as the French waited for additional troops to arrive, blocking the return to England. It was Henry that made the first move, creating long spikes to disable the French cavalry and protect his longbowmen who then launched their arrows. In retaliation the mounted knights advanced on the English but it is thought their charge was too late and lacking in numbers, losing control as the arrows rained down on them and churning the ground through which the footsoldiers would then have to trudge. By the time they did reach the longbowmen who had spent all their three million arrows for hand-to-hand fighting they were tired and weary as the mêlée continued until thousands of French had died or had been captured.     HOW THE BATTLE UNFOLDED The French lost around 10,000 men while around 112 English soldiers were killed in the battle On St Crispins Day, 1415, the English army was tired and weary having marched across norhtern France on their way home, led by King Henry V.

On the morning of 25 October the French were still waiting for additional troops to arrive. The Duke of Brabant (about 2,000 men), the Duke of Anjou (about 600 men), and the Duke of Brittany (6,000 men, according to Montstrelet), were all marching to join the army. This left the French with a question of whether or not to advance towards the English. For three hours after sunrise there was no fighting. Military textbooks of the time stated "Everywhere and on all occasions that foot soldiers march against their enemy face to face, those who march lose and those who remain standing still and holding firm win". On top of this, the French were expecting thousands of men to join them if they waited. They were blocking Henry's retreat, and were perfectly happy to wait for as long as it took. There had even been a suggestion that the English would run away rather than give battle when they saw that they would be fighting so many French princes. Henry's men, on the other hand, were already very weary from hunger, illness and marching. Even though he knew as well as the French did that his army would perform better on the defensive, Henry was eventually forced to take a calculated risk, and move his army further forward to start the battle. This entailed pulling out the long stakes pointed outwards toward the enemy which protected the longbowmen, and abandoning his chosen position. (The use of stakes was an innovation for the English: during the Battle of Crécy, for example, the archers were instead protected by pits and other obstacles.) If the French cavalry had charged before the stakes had been hammered back in, the result would probably have been disastrous for the English, as it was at the Battle of Patay. However, the French seem to have been caught off guard by the English advance. The tightness of the terrain also seems to have restricted the planned deployment of their forces. The French had originally drawn up a battle plan that had archers and crossbowmen in front of the men-at-arms, with a cavalry force at the rear specifically designed to "fall upon the archers, and use their force to break them," but in the event, the archers and crossbowmen were deployed behind and to the sides of the men-at-arms (where they seem to have played almost no part, except possibly for an initial volley of arrows at the start of the battle). The cavalry force, which could have devastated the English line if it had attacked while they moved their position, seems to have charged only after the initial volley of arrows from the English. It is unclear whether this is because the French were hoping the English would launch a frontal assault (and were surprised when the English instead started shooting from their new defensive position), or whether the French mounted knights simply did not react fast enough to the English advance. French chroniclers agree that when the mounted charge did come, it did not contain as many men as it should have; Gilles le Bouvier states that some had wandered off to warm themselves and others were walking or feeding their horses. In any case, within extreme bowshot from the French line (approximately 300 yards), the longbowmen dug in their stakes and then opened the engagement with a barrage of arrows. The French cavalry attack The French cavalry, despite being somewhat disorganised and not at full numbers, charged the longbowmen, but it was a disaster, with the French knights unable to outflank the longbowmen (because of the encroaching woodland) and unable to charge through the palings that protected the archers. John Keegan argues that the longbows' main influence on the battle was at this point: armoured only on the head, many horses would have become dangerously out of control when struck in the back or flank from the high-elevation shots used as the charge started. The effect of the mounted charge and then retreat was further to churn up the mud the French had to cross to reach the English. Juliet Barker quotes a contemporary account by a monk of St. Denis who reports how the panicking horses also galloped back through the advancing infantry, scattering them and trampling them down in their headlong flight.The Burgundian sources similarly say that the mounted men-at-arms retreated back into the advancing French vanguard. The main French assault The constable himself led the attack of the dismounted French men-at-arms. French accounts describe their vanguard alone as containing about 5,000 men-at-arms, which would have outnumbered the English men-at-arms by more than 3 to 1, but before they could engage in hand-to-hand fighting they had to cross the muddy field under a bombardment of arrows. The plate armour of the French men-at-arms allowed them to close the 300 yards or so to the English lines while being under what the French monk of Saint Denis described as "a terrifying hail of arrow shot". However they had to lower their visors and bend their heads to avoid being shot in the face (the eye and airholes in their helmets were among the weakest points in the armour), which restricted both their breathing and their vision, and then they had to walk a few hundred yards through thick mud, wearing armour weighing 50–60 pounds. According to contemporary English accounts, Henry was directly involved in the hand-to-hand fighting. Upon hearing that his youngest brotherHumphrey, Duke of Gloucester had been wounded in the groin, Henry took his household guard and stood over his brother, in the front rank of the fighting, until Humphrey could be dragged to safety; the king received an axe blow to the head which knocked off a piece of the crown that formed part of his helmet.   King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt, 1415, by Sir John Gilbert The French men-at-arms reached the English line and actually pushed it back, with the longbowmen continuing to shoot until they ran out of arrows and then dropping their bows and joining the mêlée, implying that the French were able to walk through a hail of tens of thousands of arrows while taking comparatively few casualties. (Mortimer suggests "about a thousand arrows every second". Henry brought in the region of 130,000 sheaves (i.e. about three million arrows) with him from England at the start of the campaign.) However the physical pounding from thousands of non-penetrating arrows, combined with the slog in heavy armour through the mud, the heat and lack of oxygen in plate armour with the visor down, and the crush of their numbers meant they could "scarcely lift their weapons" when they finally engaged the English line. When the English archers, using hatchets, swords and other weapons, attacked the now disordered and fatigued French, the French could not cope with their unarmoured assailants (who were much less hindered by the mud). The exhausted French men-at-arms are described as having been knocked to the ground and then unable to get back up. As the mêlée developed, the French second line also joined the attack, but they too were swallowed up, with the narrow terrain meaning the extra numbers could not be used effectively, and French men-at-arms were taken prisoner or killed in their thousands. The fighting lasted about three hours, but eventually the leaders of the second line were killed or captured, as those of the first line had been. The English Gesta Henrici describes three great heaps of the slain around the three main English standards.   The attack on the English baggage train The only French success was an attack on the lightly protected English baggage train, with Ysembart d'Azincourt (leading a small number of men-at-arms and varlets plus about 600 peasants) seizing some of Henry's personal treasures, including a crown. Whether this was part of a deliberate French plan or an act of local brigandage is unclear from the sources. Certainly, d'Azincourt was a local knight but he may have been chosen to lead the attack because of his local knowledge and the lack of availability of a more senior soldier. In some accounts the attack happened towards the end of the battle, and led the English to think they were being attacked from the rear. Barker, following the Gesta Henrici, believed to have been written by an English chaplain who was actually in the baggage train, concludes that the attack happened at the start of the battle. Henry orders the killing of the prisoners Regardless of when the baggage assault happened, there was a point after the initial English victory where Henry became alarmed that the French were regrouping for another attack. The Gesta Henrici puts this after the English had overcome the onslaught of the French men-at-arms, and the weary English troops were eyeing the French rearguard ("in incomparable number and still fresh"). Le Fevre and Waurin similarly say that it was signs of the French rearguard regrouping and "marching forward in battle order" which made the English think they were still in danger. In any event, Henry ordered the slaughter of what was perhaps several thousand French prisoners, with only the most illustrious being spared. His fear was that they would rearm themselves with the weapons strewn upon the field, and the exhausted English would be overwhelmed. Though ruthless, it was arguably justifiable given the situation of the battle; perhaps surprisingly, even the French chroniclers do not criticise him for this. This marked the end of the battle, as the French rearguard, having seen so many of the French nobility captured and killed, fled the battlefield. Why the French lost the Battle of Agincourt: Heavy armour made troops too exhausted to fight. It was a large scale medieval-day equivalent of David and Goliath. On the battlefields of Agincourt, the French outnumbered the English by up to six to one with a massive army of 36,000 soldiers. Yet despite their numeric superiority, being better equipped and fighting on home turf the French could not triumph over Henry V and his 6,000 longbow archers, dismounted knights and men-at-arms. They hit problems with their armour which, historians now believe, was their Achilles' heel, making them so exhausted that they were unable to fight. Old meets new: French Burial Ground at Agincourt Aftermath Due to a lack of reliable sources it is impossible to give a precise figure for the French and English casualties. However, it is clear that though the English were outnumbered, their losses were far lower than those of the French. The French sources all give 4,000–10,000 French dead, with up to 1,600 English dead. The lowest ratio in these French sources has the French losing six times more men than the English. The English sources vary between about 1,500 and 11,000 for the French dead, with English dead put at no more than 100. Barker identifies from the available records "at least" 112 Englishmen who died in the fighting (including Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York, a grandson of Edward III), but this excludes the wounded. One widely used estimate puts the English casualties at 450, not an insignificant number in an army of about 8,500, but far fewer than the thousands the French lost, nearly all of whom were killed or captured. Using the lowest French estimate of their own dead of 4,000 would imply a ratio of nearly 9 to 1 in favour of the English, or over 10 to 1 if the prisoners are included. The French suffered heavily. Three dukes, at least eight counts, a viscount and an archbishop died, along with numerous other nobles. Of the great royal office holders, France lost her Constable, Admiral, Master of the Crossbowmen and prévôt of the marshals. The baillis of nine major northern towns were killed, often along with their sons, relatives and supporters. In the words of Juliet Barker, the battle "cut a great swath through the natural leaders of French society in Artois, Ponthieu, Normandy, Picardy."  Estimates of the number of prisoners vary between 700 and 2,200, amongst them the Duke of Orléans (the famous poet Charles d'Orléans) and Jean Le Maingre (known as Boucicault) Marshal of France. Almost all these prisoners would have been nobles, as the less valuable prisoners were slaughtered. Although the victory had been militarily decisive, its impact was complex. It did not lead to further English conquests immediately as Henry's priority was to return to England, which he did on 16 November, to be received in triumph in London on the 23rd. Henry returned a conquering hero, in the eyes of his subjects and European powers outside of France, blessed by God. It established the legitimacy of the Lancastrian monarchy and the future campaigns of Henry to pursue his "rights and privileges" in France. Other benefits to the English were longer term. Very quickly after the battle, the fragile truce between the Armagnac and Burgundian factions broke down. The brunt of the battle had fallen on the Armagnacs and it was they who suffered the majority of senior casualties and carried the blame for the defeat. The Burgundians seized on the opportunity and within 10 days of the battle had mustered their armies and marched on Paris. This lack of unity in France would allow Henry eighteen months to prepare militarily and politically for a renewed campaign. When that campaign took place, it was made easier by the damage done to the political and military structures of Normandy by the battle. It took several years' more campaigning, but Henry was eventually able to fulfil all his objectives. He was recognised by the French in the Treaty of Troyes (1420) as the regent and heir to the French throne. This was cemented by his marriage to Catherine of Valois, the daughter of King Charles VI.

The battle of Agincourt had been particularly damaging for the nobility of the region. After this battle, the English regent John, Duke of Bedford, given the titles of Duke of Anjou and Count of Maine, ordered a systematic conquest, though this was not effected without resistance. At the time of this battle, in September 1423, the English force commanded by William de la Pole, who had returned to Normandy after a pillaging expedition to Anjou and Maine, suffered a crushing defeat. Cousinot reports that "there were great deeds of arms done" and that the English "were beaten in the field and there were fourteen to fifteen hundred killed" William Pole In the month of September 1423, Lord William de la Pole, brother of the earl of Suffolk, left Normandy with 2000 soldiers and 800 archers to go raiding in Maine and Anjou. He seized Segré, and there mustered a huge collection of loot and a herd of 1,200 bulls and cows, before setting off to return to Normandy, taking hostages as he went. To avenge the insult Queen Yolande of Aragon, mother-in-law to Charles VII of France, who was in her town of Angers, had the first thought of avenging the affront and the damage to her county, and gave orders for such a mission to the most valiant of the unlucky French king's partisans, Ambroise de Loré, who had been commander of Sainte-Suzanne since 1422. Knowing that John VIII of Harcourt, count of Aumale and governor of Touraine, Anjou and Maine, was then in Tours and preparing an expedition into Normandy, Amboise despatched a message to Aumale by letter. The governor came in haste to Laval, bringing the troops he had already gathered "and summoning men from all the lands he passed through".   Preparations The promptest and best-armed response came from the baron of Coulonges, whose services were accepted despite his current disgrace with the governor, who merely enjoined Coulonges not to present himself to him. This whole concentration of force was all gathered together very rapidly. D'Aumale had not yet arrived in Laval on Friday 24 September, but set off again as early as the Saturday morning, on his way to take up a position on the road to follow the English, sending scouts to keep an eye on their march and to inform him of it exactly. It was early at the Bourgneuf-la-Forêt, from which he sent word to Anne de Laval at Vitré "to pray her that she would send him the army of her sons, named André of Lohéac, then a young man of twelve years; which she did very willingly, and sent him to accompany it, master Guy XIV de Laval, lord of Mont-Jean, and all the people of the seigneurie of Laval, with several other of their vassals that she could recover and bring in promptly from other parts". Aumale then took counsel from the bastard duke of Alençon, the sire de Mont-Jean, Louis of Trémigon and Ambroise of Loré. He appraised them that the English were three leagues off and that they would pass La Brossinière, following the main road from Brittany, the following Sunday morning. Course of the battle Two hours after the troops had been drawn up in battle order, the English scouts who were giving chase arrived and met the French skirmishers. The scouts ran them down and forced them to withdraw into the line of battle, where they stood their ground. The English could no longer pursue them, since a massed body of cavalry was in front of them, withdrawing towards the count of Aumale; they could only form an arc when the troops unmasked themselves. The English, with a long baggage train but marching in good order, dug in strongly behind defences, behind which they could retire in case of cavalry attack. Trémigon, Loré and Coulonges wanted to make an attempt on the defences, but they were too strong; they turned there and bravely attacked the English in the flank, but were broken and cornered in a large ditch. The infantry moved to the front; the convoy of carts, and troops closed up and tried to escape behind but they were unable to withstand for long. The result was a butchery in which 1,200 to 1,400 men of the English forces perished. The others, including William Pole, Thomas Aubourg and Thomas Cliffeton, fled, though only 120 got away. On the French side, only a single knight was lost, John Le Roux, and "a few others [of no title]" ("peu d'autres"). André of Lohéac, the future marshal, was knighted with several of his companions. The lady of Laval had the dead buried. The victory was a happy augury for the start of Charles VII's reign, and remains a glorious memory for the French

The Chemin de Cocaigne was a Gallo-Roman way restored under the Carolingians, that linked the Cotentin peninsula of what would become Normandy, skirted Brittany and ran eventually beyond Aquitaine to the Gascogne in the southwest. The section called the chemin gravelais ("gravelled road") linked Normandy and Anjou. The route was alluded to as the chemin du Roy (the "King's road") in a document of 1454. For pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela it was one of the feeder routes leading to Poitiers, where it joined the Way of St James beyond the Pyrenees. This route, the only route that was fit for wheeled vehicles, was a long-range commercial link that gained strategic significance in wartime; where it crossed Bourgon at the meadow of Le Pavement, the Battle of La Brossinière was fought along the chemin in September 1423, a victory for French in the Hundred Years' War; the English forces were forced to abandon their baggage train, which had dictated their course with its heavily laden wagons. Parts of the route may be traced today from the north to south,[1] starting from the département de la Mayenne. Even where the road was ploughed up centuries ago, some toponyms may still reveal its former passage. South of La Gravelle the route passed through Le Prtre, near which the hamlets of Saint-Cyr-le-Gravelais (1 km) and Ruillé-le-Gravelais (5.3 km) record the passage of the route, which still may be traced on a paved secondary route leading due south of Le Pertre to the crossroads at Saint-Poix. Two kilometers southeast of Loroux, a place that still bears the name of le Carrefour appears to indicate the intersection with a way that led from Carhaix to Lisieux. The village of La Pellerine recalls the throngs of strangers who passed as pilgrims; half a kilometer to the south is La Gascoignerie, recalling the route's southern destination. Often way-stations sited where roads intersected the main route bear names that indicated the side road's destination. The Chemin de Cocaigne still marks sections of the boundary between the départements of Mayenne and Ille-et-Vilaine, for example the nine-kilometer stretch between Bourgon and the Forêt du Pertre, which formed a buffer in the Middle Ages between Mayenne and Brittany

France was full of rovers--disbanded soldiers ready for anything that might turn up. Several times, at intervals, when Joan's dull captivity grew too heavy to bear, she was allowed to gather a troop of cavalry and make a health-restoring dash against the enemy. These things were a bath to her spirits.
    It was like old times, there at Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, to see her lead assault after assault, be driven back again and again, but always rally and charge anew, all in a blaze of eagerness and delight; till at last the tempest of missiles rained so intolerably thick that old D'Aulon, who was wounded, sounded the retreat (for the King had charged him on his head to let no harm come to Joan); and away everybody rushed after him--as he supposed; but when he turned and looked, there were we of the staff still hammering away; wherefore he rode back and urged her to come, saying she was mad to stay there with only a dozen men. Her eye danced merrily, and she turned upon him crying out:
    "A dozen men! name of God, I have fifty-thousand, and will never budge till this place is taken!
    "Sound the charge!"
    Which he did, and over the walls we went, and the fortress was ours. Old D'Aulon thought her mind was wandering; but all she meant was, that she felt the might of fifty thousand men surging in her heart. It was a fanciful expression; but, to my thinking, truer word was never said.
    Then there was the affair near Lagny, where we charged the intrenched Burgundians through the open field four times, the last time victoriously; the best prize of it Franquet d'Arras, the free-booter and pitiless scourge of the region roundabout.
Now and then other such affairs; and at last, away toward the end of May, 1430, we were in the neighborhood of Compiegne, and Joan resolved to go to the help of that place, which was being besieged by the Duke of Burgundy.
    I had been wounded lately, and was not able to ride without help; but the good Dwarf took me on behind him, and I held on to him and was safe enough. We started at midnight, in a sullen downpour of warm rain, and went slowly and softly and in dead silence, for we had to slip through the enemy's lines. We were challenged only once; we made no answer, but held our breath and crept steadily and stealthily along, and got through without any accident. About three or half past we reached Compiegne, just as the gray dawn was breaking in the east.
    Joan set to work at once, and concerted a plan with Guillaume de Flavy, captain of the city--a plan for a sortie toward evening against the enemy, who was posted in three bodies on the other side of the Oise, in the level plain. From our side one of the city gates communicated with a bridge. The end of this bridge was defended on the other side of the river by one of those fortresses called a boulevard; and this boulevard also commanded a raised road, which stretched from its front across the plain to the village of Marguy. A force of Burgundians occupied Marguy; another was camped at Clairoix, a couple of miles above the raised road; and a body of English was holding Venette, a mile and a half below it. A kind of bow-and-arrow arrangement, you see; the causeway the arrow, the boulevard at the feather-end of it, Marguy at the barb, Venette at one end of the bow, Clairoix at the other.
    Joan's plan was to go straight per causeway against Marguy, carry it by assault, then turn swiftly upon Clairoix, up to the right, and capture that camp in the same way, then face to the rear and be ready for heavy work, for the Duke of Burgundy lay behind Clairoix with a reserve. Flavy's lieutenant, with archers and the artillery of the boulevard, was to keep the English troops from coming up from below and seizing the causeway and cutting off Joan's retreat in case she should have to make one. Also, a fleet of covered boats was to be stationed near the boulevard as an additional help in case a retreat should become necessary.
    It was the 24th of May. At four in the afternoon Joan moved out at the head of six hundred cavalry--on her last march in this life!
    It breaks my heart. I had got myself helped up onto the walls, and from there I saw much that happened, the rest was told me long afterward by our two knights and other eye-witnesses. Joan crossed the bridge, and soon left the boulevard behind her and went skimming away over the raised road with her horsemen clattering at her heels. She had on a brilliant silver-gilt cape over her armor, and I could see it flap and flare and rise and fall like a little patch of white flame.
    It was a bright day, and one could see far and wide over that plain. Soon we saw the English force advancing, swiftly and in handsome order, the sunlight flashing from its arms.
    Joan crashed into the Burgundians at Marguy and was repulsed. Then she saw the other Burgundians moving down from Clairoix. Joan rallied her men and charged again, and was again rolled back. Two assaults occupy a good deal of time--and time was precious here. The English were approaching the road now from Venette, but the boulevard opened fire on them and they were checked. Joan heartened her men with inspiring words and led them to the charge again in great style. This time she carried Marguy with a hurrah. Then she turned at once to the right and plunged into the plan and struck the Clairoix force, which was just arriving; then there was heavy work, and plenty of it, the two armies hurling each other backward turn about and about, and victory inclining first to the one, then to the other. Now all of a sudden thee was a panic on our side. Some say one thing caused it, some another. Some say the cannonade made our front ranks think retreat was being cut off by the English, some say the rear ranks got the idea that Joan was killed. Anyway our men broke, and went flying in a wild rout for the causeway. Joan tried to rally them and face them around, crying to them that victory was sure, but it did no good, they divided and swept by her like a wave. Old D'Aulon begged her to retreat while there was yet a chance for safety, but she refused; so he seized her horse's bridle and bore her along with the wreck and ruin in spite of herself. And so along the causeway they came swarming, that wild confusion of frenzied men and horses--and the artillery had to stop firing, of course; consequently the English and Burgundians closed in in safety, the former in front, the latter behind their prey. Clear to the boulevard the French were washed in this enveloping inundation; and there, cornered in an angle formed by the flank of the boulevard and the slope of the causeway, they bravely fought a hopeless fight, and sank down one by one.
    Flavy, watching from the city wall, ordered the gate to be closed and the drawbridge raised. This shut Joan out.     The little personal guard around her thinned swiftly. Both of our good knights went down disabled; Joan's two brothers fell wounded; then Noel Rainguesson--all wounded while loyally sheltering Joan from blows aimed at her. When only the Dwarf and the Paladin were left, they would not give up, but stood their ground stoutly, a pair of steel towers streaked and splashed with blood; and where the ax of one fell, and the sword of the other, an enemy gasped and died.
    And so fighting, and loyal to their duty to the last, good simple souls, they came to their honorable end. Peace to their memories! they were very dear to me.
    Then there was a cheer and a rush, and Joan, still defiant, still laying about her with her sword, was seized by her cape and dragged from her horse. She was borne away a prisoner to the Duke of Burgundy's camp, and after her followed the victorious army roaring its joy.
    The awful news started instantly on its round; from lip to lip it flew; and wherever it came it struck the people as with a sort of paralysis; and they murmured over and over again, as if they were talking to themselves, or in their sleep, "The Maid of Orleans taken! . . . Joan of Arc a prisoner! . . . the savior of France lost to us!"--and would keep saying that over, as if they couldn't understand how it could be, or how God could permit it, poor creatures!
    You know what a city is like when it is hung from eaves to pavement with rustling black? Then you know what Rouse was like, and some other cities. But can any man tell you what the mourning in the hearts of the peasantry of France was like? No, nobody can tell you that, and, poor dumb things, they could not have told you themselves, but it was there--indeed, yes. Why, it was the spirit of a whole nation hung with crape!
    The 24th of May. We will draw down the curtain now upon the most strange, and pathetic, and wonderful military drama that has been played upon the stage of the world. Joan of Arc will march no more.

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