Edward halted around Oisemont and scouting parties searched along the banks for a crossing, but from Pont-Rémy, just east of Abbeville, to Picquigny, just west of Amiens, the bridges were down and the fords guarded. All along the north bank French troops swarmed and all attempts by English detachments to get across were repulsed. Then Edward was informed of a ford at Blanchetaque, between Abbeville and the mouth of the Somme, which could apparently be crossed at low tide. It is unclear – the sources vary – whether this information came from a prisoner offered his freedom and that of twenty of his chosen companions, or from an English soldier who had served in the area before. On 23 August, the English army began to move to a concentration area at Acheux, eight miles from the river, and that same day the French army began to move west from Amiens along the south bank of the river. Their hopes were high: the English could not cross the river, and the French would trap them with far superior forces and destroy them.
Sometime during the night of 23/24 August, the English army marched, intending to get to Blanchetaque at low tide. Loading the baggage wagons and the sumpter horses in the dark took longer than it should have, and the army was late. When the troops arrived at the river on the morning of 24 August 1346, the sun was up and the tide in: neither man nor horse could wade across, and they had to wait until the tide turned once again. The deep and fast-flowing water was not the only problem, however, for Philip also knew about Blanchetaque and had sent one of his more competent commanders, Godemar du Fay, with a mixed force of men-at-arms, Genoese crossbowmen and light infantry to hold the north side of the river and prevent a crossing. Froissart, with the chronicler’s usual exaggeration, puts Godemar’s detachment at around 12,000, but it was probably nearer 500 men-at-arms and around 1,000 infantry including the Genoese.20 The French were drawn up in three ranks and it was clear that they were there to stay.
For several hours, the English and the French could do little but stare at each other, but then, some time after Prime (0600 hours), the tide had gone out sufficiently for the earl of Northampton to lead 100 men-at-arms and about the same number of flanking archers into the river. The Genoese crossbowmen began to loose their bolts, which caused some casualties until the archers got within range. Once the archers began to shoot from about 150 yards, gaps began to appear in the French ranks and covering volleys allowed the English men-at-arms to reach the northern bank. Once they were on the bank, they held a narrow bridgehead while more and more of Edward’s soldiers swarmed across, covered by the archers. Then the balance shifted, and the English had more men across than the French had to oppose them. Godemar du Fay, realizing that the day was lost, ordered a retreat which soon became a rout, as the English men-at-arms mounted their horses and pursued the fleeing French almost to the gates of Amiens. By the time that detachments of the main French army arrived at the southern end of Blanchetaque, Edward’s army, with its men, horses, wagons and accumulated loot, was long gone,36 the tide was in again, and pursuit was impossible. On the evening of 24 August, the French army returned to Abbeville to cross the Somme there, while the English camped in the forest of Crécy.
There can be little doubt that Edward III wanted a battle, and he wanted it to be decisive, but he wanted it on his own terms. Ponthieu had been English by inheritance since 1279, even if Philip had confiscated it; there was an escape route if needed, either to Flanders or to the coast, where Edward could have rendezvoused with as much of the navy as had not deserted to realize their plunder;37 and most important of all, there was a possible battlefield that fitted all the requirements of English battle procedure shaped from the experiences of Bannockburn, Dupplin Moor and Halidon Hill.
There has, though, been some debate among historians over the exact location of the battlefield of Crécy. On the assumption that everyone knew where a battle took place, the chroniclers tended not to give more than a cursory description of the location – they were more concerned with embellishing tales of knightly chivalry – and archaeological evidence is either not there or impossible to find. Only when firearms appear on the battlefield can archaeology, by finding where a line of musket balls has landed and therefore from where they were fired, work out fairly accurately what happened. Metal-detector enthusiasts are often surprised that arrowheads, broken swords, spurs, discarded helmets and the like are rarely found on a medieval battlefield. But all these were valuable items, even if broken, and if the field was not thoroughly gleaned by the victors, it was by the local inhabitants, so that in a very short space of time no artefacts would be left.38 The only evidence for the traditionally accepted site of the battle – apart from what the chroniclers report, and that can be read in several ways – is in local tradition and in place names. The best argument for accepting the area of the gently sloping valley to the north-east of Crécy-en-Ponthieu as the site of the battle is that, if Edward wanted a battle (and all the available evidence is that he did), then he could not have found a better place to have it – assuming that he wanted to force the French into attacking him, as English tactical doctrine said he should. There is simply nowhere else within a day’s march – and the French were but a day’s march behind – that offers anything like the advantages of the Crécy position.21
Between the villages of Crécy and Wadicourt there is a ridge along which runs the modern D111. The ridge forms the side of a valley that slopes north-east to south-west between the ridge and the village of Estrées-lès-Crécy, just off a Roman road that is now an extension of the Chausée Brunehaut. Behind the ridge was a wood, and running from Crécy south-east along the side of the valley is the River Maye, while on the northern side of the valley was a steep bank. Assuming that the French would approach from the south or the south-east, it was a perfect defensive position. Edward’s army spent the night of 24 August in and around the woods south and west of the ridge of Crécy. On the morning of 25 August, the king and his senior commanders reconnoitred the ground on horseback, looking at every possible line of approach. The plan was simple: the army would take position on the ridge and dare the French to drive them off it.
The strength of Edward’s army at Crécy, like that which landed at La Hougue, is and has been the subject of much debate. No two chroniclers agree and all tend to exaggerate. The historian Andrew Ayton has produced a convincing assessment of numbers and breakdown by arms of the army on landing in Normandy, and this seems the most accurate analysis that we are likely to get. According to him, Edward started off with around 16,500 all ranks, all arms. There had not been a pitched battle so far, and, while the chroniclers repeatedly state that no, or very few, English were killed, there must have been a steady attrition from the storming of small towns, the killing of foragers by grumpy farmers, the battle for Caen, and the crossing at Blanchetaque, to say nothing of men wounded and unable to rejoin the banners, accidents (there are reports of burning houses collapsing on top of the arsonists), disease, sickness and desertion. On top of that, the escort to the prisoners sent back to England under the earl of Huntingdon must be deducted. While it can only be a very rough approximation, it does not seem unreasonable to allow for a reduction in the size of the army of between 10 and 15 per cent. As the knights, esquires and men-at-arms were rather better protected than the rest, we might suggest a reduction of 10 per cent in that category and 15 per cent of the archers and spearmen. Most of the hobelars, not overly involved in skirmishing so far, had probably survived. If the foregoing is anywhere near correct and if the majority of the knights fought as armoured infantrymen with the earls and bannerets commanding sub-units of varying size, then Edward at Crécy could field around 4,500 armoured infantry, perhaps 4,000 light infantry – assuming that the hobelars, whose mounted role would now be in abeyance, fought as spearmen (they were equipped with a lance, sword and helmet) – and rather more than 3,000 archers.
The army was still in its three battles, of roughly the same size, and again there is much debate about how they were formed up. We can probably dismiss the suggestion that the sold
iers formed up and fought in their mixed-arm retinues. This would make no military sense, diluting as it would the battle-winning arrow storms and creating weaknesses in the infantry line. It is far more likely that, for all the advantages of fighting alongside men they knew and had marched with, the archers would have been separated from the men-at-arms and the light infantry. The chronicler Jean le Bel, from whom Froissart takes much of his account, has all three battles in line, and even eminent modern scholars, relying on original sources, have the battles deployed either as le Bel describes or one behind the other. It would have certainly been unusual to have all three battles in the front line, for there would then have been no depth to the position – if the enemy had pierced the line, there would have been nothing behind to stop them. Similarly, if all three battles had been engaged simultaneously, there would have been no reserve, and a commander without a reserve is unable to influence the battle once it begins. Conversely, the placing of the battles one behind the other would have reduced fighting power considerably and been unlikely to cover the frontage.
The length of the ridge along which Edward arrayed his army is about 1,500 yards, which, allowing room for the archers and gaps between sub-units, would have needed 2,400 infantrymen if they had formed up two ranks deep, and 4,800 in four ranks. The frontage could only have been covered by one battle if the men were formed in two ranks, and this seems most unlikely: it would not have been sufficient to withstand the shock of an assault by mounted or dismounted men. If the chronicles and the paintings can be relied upon at all (doubtful, I accept), then the description of hand-to-hand fighting would indicate that the men were formed in at least three and probably four ranks, which would predicate two battles forward. If we rely on the theory of inherent military probability, and what we can extract from the sources, then the most likely deployment would seem to have been two battles forward in four ranks – the vanguard of the Prince of Wales on the right as the senior commander after the king, the rearguard under the earl of Arundel on the left, and the centre, commanded by the king, in the rear. While the three battles were given the titles vanguard, centre and rearguard, this did not, rather confusingly, mean that they necessarily occupied those positions. As the king was in overall command, it made sense for him to be in the rear, from where he could control the battle. In the event, he made use of a windmill on the ridge as a command post: in this way he could look over the two forward battles and, if necessary, easily deploy the rear one as a reserve or reinforcement.
As for the archers, here too there is discussion over their deployment. It has been suggested that the archers were formed in line either in front of or behind the infantry. This again makes little sense: they would impede the infantry and cause chaos as they tried to avoid a closing enemy, and the formation would dilute the effect of their shooting. There can be little doubt that the archers were placed as they were at Dupplin Moor and Halidon Hill – that is, on the flanks, where their shooting could have prevented any outflanking move, forced an enemy to close into his centre, and so reduced his momentum that, if he did get as far as the infantry line, he could easily have been repulsed.
What is more problematical is whether or not there were archers in the centre as well as on the flanks. For if each battle was allocated its own archers, then it is perfectly likely that archers were positioned on the flanks of each battle, and in that case some would be in the centre of the English line. In most paintings and in many of the original sources, the archers are shown or described as being in a wedge shape, and, as the commander or commanders of the archers would have to balance concentration of arrows with the area over which they fell, then a square formation would seem best. If there were 1,500 or so archers on each flank, then they could have been formed into two squares each of thirty-eight men across and the same deep. If each man occupied a circle with a radius of two yards – enough room for him to place his arrows on the ground and draw his bow – then each square would need a frontage of around seventy-five yards, and in the heat of battle the square might well have become a lozenge or a wedge. If archers were deployed on the flanks of the battles, rather than on the flanks of the army, then each battle would have been flanked by squares each of around fifty yards across, and to an oncoming enemy it would have appeared that the mass of archers was in the centre of the front line. On balance, it would seem likely that the archers were on the flanks of the army only, but one cannot dismiss the possibility that there were some in the centre as well.
Having ridden around the area and decided upon his plan of action, Edward ordered pits and holes to be dug across the cavalry approaches and had the baggage wagons drawn into the woods of Crécy-Grange on the north side of the ridge, where they were used to form a laager inside which the army’s horses were put. As there may still have been as many as 20,000 horses, any lost having been more than compensated for by those captured or plundered, the stabling area would have been enormous. There was neither time nor material to build stalls, so hitching rails would have been put up; and, in order to prevent horses fighting or kicking each other, they would have had to be tied up a good twelve feet apart, with each line of rails eight feet behind the one in front of it. This indicates an area of 500 yards by 400 yards for stabling alone, and the animals would have had to be fed and watered – a labour-intensive task which would have been partly undertaken by non-combatants, although it is probable that numbers of hobelars were detached to guard the laager and look after the horses at the same time. By morning on 26 August, all was ready. The soldiers heard mass and the priests heard confessions. The men were then told to sit or lie down in their positions while breakfast was cooked by fatigue parties and brought up to the lines.
Meanwhile, the French army under Philip spent the night of 25 August at Abbeville. As with the English army, we can only make an educated guess at its strength. All sources, English and French, agree that the French were far more numerous than the English. Their heavy cavalry (composed of the nobility) is variously reported as numbering from 12,000 to 30,000, the (mounted) men-at-arms from 60,000 to 100,000, and the crossbowmen from 2,000 to 15,000. The lowest multiple given by any of the chronicles is that of le Bel, who says that there were four times as many French as there were English. If we err on the conservative side and take a multiple of three, and if we accept that it is most unlikely that Genoa and northern Italy could have produced more than 2,000 crossbowmen at Crécy, given that they also provided garrisons in other parts of the French lands, then we might hazard a guess at the French army consisting of around 30,000 heavy cavalry and mounted men-at-arms in the probable proportion of one noble to four men-at-arms, plus those 2,000 crossbowmen. Not all those men would have been at Abbeville on the evening of 25 August: units and retinues kept arriving during the night and into the next day.
Philip knew that the English were somewhere in the vicinity of Crécy, and on the morning of 26 August the French army began to move north in that direction. Ahead of them went a small reconnaissance party of four knights to report the location, strength and intentions of the English. They reported back that the English army was deployed on the ridge between Crécy and Wadicourt, that they looked as if they were prepared for a battle, and that there were no indications that they might move off. Furthermore, the leader of the reconnaissance party suggested that it would be a sensible idea for the French army to concentrate and rest until the following day, when they would be in a much better position to destroy the English upstart. This very sound advice was echoed by Philip’s senior commanders and accepted by him. Many French units were still on the march from Abbeville, others were still coming in from other parts of the country, and a large allied contingent from Savoy would not arrive until sometime the next day. Philip was always a cautious commander – in hindsight too cautious perhaps – but he was absolutely right to heed the advice given and to issue orders that the army was to advance no farther but to bivouac and be prepared for battle the next day. By now, the leading French units had reached
the valley, about 1,000 yards from the English position. They could see the English and the English could see them. It was late in the day (probably not as late as Froissart thought – Vespers or dusk – but perhaps 1700 or 1800 hours), and the English would have been watching more and more French soldiers of various types crowd onto the field. Even the greenest Welsh spearman could do the maths, but, as Edward rode along the lines shouting words of encouragement, his men were quite confident in their ability to hold off the French host.
As Philip’s orders to hold hard were delivered to the troops in the vanguard, they obediently halted, but, as the orders were relayed farther back, the recipients were unhappy: they wanted to get forward where they could see the enemy, and then they might halt. The result was a scrum of major proportions, as those behind pushed and shoved to get forward and those in front tried to hold their positions. In an aristocracy-heavy army, where every man felt himself the equal of every other and instant obedience to orders was an extraordinary concept, there was a general feeling of wanting to get on with the battle – at least among the mounted element who had let their horses do the work of the march from Abbeville. It was soon apparent to Philip and his marshals that the task of holding the army back was an impossibility, and so the battle might as well start now.
The crossbowmen were ordered forward to lead the French advance. Unlike archers, who except at very close range shot their arrows at a high angle and so could be arrayed in ranks all shooting at the same time, crossbowmen fired on a flat trajectory and, as they could only reload standing up, were obliged to shoot one rank at a time. Tactically, the intention was that volleys of bolts from the crossbowmen would so disorganize the enemy line, not least by killing large numbers of men in it, that those who remained would become easy prey for a charge by the mounted knights and men-at-arms. While we do not know exactly how the crossbowmen were deployed, it is logical to suppose that they would have acted in the same way as did men armed with matchlocks in a later age. If the rate of discharge was two quarrels a minute, the front rank could discharge its weapons and then move to the rear to reload while the next rank stepped forward and did the same. A formation three ranks deep could therefore loose a volley every ten seconds. If the French army’s crossbowmen did advance in this way, then, allowing a yard of front per man, the 2,000 crossbowmen would have covered a frontage of around 700 yards. In view of what happened to them, it is likely that they did not bring their pavises with them. These may have still been in the baggage train; alternatively, given that the crossbowmen were ordered to move forward rather than shoot from a defensive line, they may have found their shields too cumbersome to bring with them.
A Great and Glorious Adventure Page 12
