Hilaire Belloc - The Collected Works of Hilaire Belloc

What is quite impossible is that such a conversion and retirement should have been attempted; for we know that a strong rearguard was left, and held the entrenchments continuously.

To leave the field in the second fashion I have described is mathematically equivalent to breaking up your rearguard and ceasing to maintain it for the covering of your retreat. It is possible only if you do not intend to have a rearguard at all to cover your retirement, because you think you do not need it. As a fact, we know that all during the movement, whatever it was, a great body of troops remained on the field not moving, and watching the direction from which the French might attack. So even if there was a beginning of retirement, a strong rearguard was maintained to cover that movement. We further know that the Black Prince and the man who may be called chief of his staff, Chandos, planned to keep that very strong force in position in any case, until the retirement (if retirement it were) was completed; and we further know that the fight began with a very stout and completely successful resistance by what must have been a large body posted along the ridge, and what even the one account which speaks of the retirement describes as the bulk of the army.

To believe, then, that Warwick filed off by the left, followed by the vehicles, and then by the main command under the Prince, and that all this larger part of the army, including its wheeled vehicles, had got across the ford before contact took place and an action developed, is impossible. It is not only opposed to any sound judgment, it is mathematically impossible. It also conflicts with the use of a park of vehicles to defend the left of the entrenched line, and with the natural use of the line of retreat by Nouaillé. I can only conclude that what really happened was something of this sort:

Edward intended to retreat if he were left unmolested. He intended to retreat through Nouaillé and by its bridge, but for safety and to disencumber the road he sent the more valuable of the loot-waggons by the short cut over the ford.

The Prince had got the bulk of his force standing on the entrenched position upon that Monday morning, and bidden it wait and see whether the enemy would attempt to force them or no. As there was no sign of the enemy’s approach from the northwest, and as he was not even watched by any scout of the enemy’s, he next put Salisbury in command of the main force along the hedge, put Warwick and Oxford at the head of a strong escort for leading off the more valuable of the booty—which would presumably be in few waggons—and began to get these waggons away down the hill towards the ford. They would thus be taking a short cut to join the road between Nouaillé and Roches later on, and they would relieve the congestion upon the main road of retreat through Nouaillé. It is possible that the Black Prince oversaw this operation himself upon the dawn of that day, involving, as it did, the negotiation of a steep bank with cumbersome vehicles, and those vehicles carrying the more precious and portable loot of his raid. This would give rise to the memory of his having crossed the stream. But, meanwhile, the mass of army was still standing where it was posted, prepared for retreat on the bridge of Nouaillé if it were not molested, or for action if it were. Just as this minor detachment of the more valuable vehicles, with its escort, had got across the water, messengers told Edward that there were signs of a French advance. He at once came back, countermanded all provisional orders for the retirement, and recalled the escort, save perhaps some small party to watch the waggons which had got beyond the river. Thus, returning immediately, Edward was ready to instruct and fight the action in the fashion described in all the other accounts.

This, I think, is the rational reconciliation of several stories which are only in apparent contradiction, and which are rather confusing than antagonistic.

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