Hilaire Belloc - The Collected Works of Hilaire Belloc

Secondly, Edward defended that right flank from attack by establishing there his park of waggons.

None the less, the Black Prince could not fail to see the obvious danger of the open right upon the plateau beyond the Roman road; even in the absence of any manœuvring, the mere superior length of the French line might suffice to envelop him there. It was presumably upon this account that he stationed a small body of horse upon that slightly higher piece of land, five hundred yards behind Maupertuis and a little to the right of it, which is now the site of the railway station; and this mounted force which he kept in reserve was to prove an excellent point of observation during the battle. It was the view over towards the French position obtained from it which led, as will be seen in the next section, to the flank charge of the Captal de Buch.

There remains to be considered such environments of the position as would affect the results of the battle. I have already spoken of the obstacle of the Miosson, of Nouaillé, of the passages of the river, and of the woods which would further check a pursuit if the pressure following upon a partial defeat, or upon a determination to retire without accepting action, should prove serious. I must now speak of these in a little more detail.

The depression, which was the main feature of the battlefield, is carved like its fellows out of a general and very level plateau of a height some four hundred to four hundred and fifty feet above the sea. This formation is so even that all the higher rolls of the land are within ten or twenty feet of the same height. They are, further, about one hundred feet, or a little more, higher than the water level of the local streams. This tableland, and particularly the ravine of the Miosson, nourishes a number of woods. One such wood, not more than a mile long by perhaps a quarter broad, covers Nouaillé, and intervenes between that town and the battlefield. On the other side of the Miosson there is a continuous belt of wood five miles long, with only one gap through it, which gap is used by the road leading from Nouaillé to Roches and to the great south-western road to Bordeaux.

In other words, the Black Prince had prepared his position just in front of a screen of further defensible woodland.

I have mentioned one last element in the tactical situation of which I have spoken, and which needs careful consideration.

Over and above the passage of the Miosson by a regular bridge and a proper road at Nouaillé, the water is fordable in ordinary weather at a spot corresponding to the gap between the woods, and called “Man’s Ford” or “Le Gué d’Homme.” Now, of the several accounts of the action, one, the Latin chronicler Baker, mentions the ford, while another, the rhymed French story of the Chandos Herald , speaks of Edward’s having begun to retire, and of part of his forces having already crossed the river before contact took place. I will deal later with this version; but in connection with the ford and whether Edward either did or intended to cross by it, it is worthy of remark that the only suggestion of his actually having crossed it, and of his intention to do so in any case, is to be found in the rhymed chronicle of the Chandos Herald ; and the question arises—what reliance should be placed on that document?

It is evident on the face of it that the detail of the retreat was not invented. Everyone is agreed that the rhymed chronicle of the Chandos Herald does not carry the same authority as prose contemporary work. It is not meant to. It is a literary effort rather than a record. But there would be no reason for inventing such a point as the beginning of a retreat before an action—not a very glorious or dramatic proceeding—and the mere mention of such a local feature as the ford in Baker is clear proof that what we can put together from the two accounts is based upon an historical event and the memory of witnesses.

On the other hand, the road proper ran through Nouaillé, and when you are cumbered with a number of heavy-wheeled vehicles, to avoid a road and a regular bridge and to take a bye-track across fields down a steep bank and through water would seem a very singular proceeding. Further, this track would lose all the advantages which the wood of Nouaillé gave against pursuit, and, finally, would mean the use of a passage that could not be cut, rather than one that could.

Again, we know that the Black Prince when he was preparing the position on Sunday morning, covered its left flank, exactly as his father had done at Crécy ten years before, with what the Tudors called a “leaguer,” or park of waggons.

Further, we have a discrepancy between the story of this retreat by the ford and the known order of battle arranged the day before. In that order of battle he put in the first line, just behind his archers, who lined the hedge bounding the vineyards, a group of men-at-arms under Warwick and Oxford. He himself commanded the body just behind these, and the third or rearmost line was under the command of Salisbury and Suffolk.

How are these contemporary and yet contradictory accounts to be reconciled? What was the real meaning of movement on the ford?

I beg the reader to pay a very particular attention to the mechanical detail which I am here examining, because it is by criticism such as this that the truth is established in military history between vague and apparently inconsistent accounts.

If you are in command of a force such as that indicated upon the following plan, in which A and B together form your front line, C your second, and D your third, all three facing in the direction of the arrow, and expecting an attack from that direction; and if, after having drawn up your men so, you decide there is to be no attack, and determine to retreat in the direction of X, your most natural plan will be to file off down the line towards X, first with your column D, to be followed by your column C, with A and B bringing up the rear. And this would be all the more consonant with your position, from the fact that the very men A and B, whom you had picked out as best suited to take the first shock of an action, had an action occurred, would also in the retreat form your rearguard, and be ready to fight pursuers should a pursuit develop and press you. That is quite clear.

Now, if, for reasons of internal organisation or what not, you desired to keep your vanguard still your vanguard in retreat, as it was on the field, your middle body still your middle body on the march, and what was your rearguard on the field still your rearguard in the long column whereby you would leave that field, the manœuvre by which you would maintain this order would be filing off by the left; that is, ordering A to form fours and turn from a line into a column, facing towards the point E, and, having done so, to march off in the direction of X. You would order B to act in the same fashion next. When A and B had got clear of you and had reached, say, F, you would make C form fours and follow after; and when C had marched away so far as to leave things clear for D, the last remaining line, you would make D in its turn form fours and close up the column.

Now, suppose the Black Prince had been certain on that Monday morning that there would be no attack, nor even any pursuit. Suppose that he were so absolutely certain as to let him dispense with a rearguard—then he might have drawn off in the second of the two fashions I have mentioned. Warwick and Oxford (A and B) would have gone first, C (the Black Prince, in the centre) would have gone next, and Salisbury, D, would have closed the line of the retreat. This would have been the slowest method he could have chosen for getting off the field, it would have had no local tactical advantage whatsoever, and to adopt such a method in a hurried departure at dawn from the neighbourhood of a larger force with whom one had been treating for capitulation the day before, would be a singular waste of time in any case. But, at any rate, it would be physically possible.