Hereford George - Battles of English History

The Black Prince's army was as usual divided into three parts, under the earl of Warwick, the prince himself, and the earl of Salisbury. The numbers are disputed, the French being naturally inclined to raise the total, the English to diminish it. The authorities on the English side agree in giving about 8000, and they obviously would have the best means of knowing. A real element of uncertainty is, however, always present, in the doubt whether the attendants on the knights are to be added, or are meant to be included in the number given of other soldiers besides the men-at-arms and archers. Probably it would be safe to affirm that the number did not exceed 10,000 of all arms. Having to fight a defensive action against very superior forces, the prince necessarily resorted to tactics much like those of Crecy. The earl of Warwick's division, comprising comparatively a large proportion of archers, lined the hedge in front. Salisbury's men-at-arms, dismounted, were drawn up in line, a stone's-throw back from the gap in the hedge, with archers on their flanks, who would naturally be thrown forwards. The prince's own "battle" he moved 30 30 According to Baker, the prince began this movement cum cariagiis , to which, however, there is no further reference. It is obviously possible that the prince may have wished to get the baggage out of the way, and therefore started it towards the Gué de l'Homme, and that he shifted his troops in order to cover this from the French. If so, this would be the element of truth in the Chandos Herald's narrative; but it does not in any way remove the essential contradiction between the Chandos Herald and the other authorities. up on to a gentle eminence on one flank; this was at the spot marked Bernon on the map, and on the left flank, assuming Colonel Babinet to be right in his identification of the position. From this point he returned after the battle had begun, to sustain Warwick and Salisbury, except that he throughout kept some hundreds of men-at-arms mounted, in reserve.

The numbers on the French side are stated with much greater discrepancy than on the English. Froissart gives no less than 60,000, but there seems reason to believe that the real amount was about 40,000, or fully four times the Black Prince's total. A picked body of 500 horsemen, under the two marshals Audrehen and Clermont, was to lead the attack. This was followed by the first of the main "battles" under the duke of Normandy, John's eldest son. The second was commanded by his brother the duke of Orleans, the third by the king in person; both of these remained apparently at some distance. As the marshals advanced up the funnel-shaped opening leading to the gap, which was itself only wide enough for four horsemen abreast, the archers, protected by the hedge, poured in volleys of arrows. Thanks to their armour, the French were not all shot down, and engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with Salisbury's men, ranked beyond the gap. The first French line, as they followed, engaged with Warwick's troops along the whole line of the hedge.

Seeing that many arrows were broken on the stout armour, or glanced from it, the earl of Oxford bade the archers, who were closing round the flank and rear of the mounted force, aim at the horses, which were less protected. In this way the horsemen were soon routed; one marshal was killed, the other taken prisoner, their immediate command was nearly destroyed, and the whole first line was driven back in confusion. The temptation to pursue must have been strong: but the English leaders knew that their work was only begun. They reformed their ranks, and awaited a fresh attack, which was not long in coming. The French second line under the duke of Orleans advanced in its turn, and after a similar struggle was repulsed even more completely. Still the English commanders would not allow pursuit, though Sir Maurice Berkeley 31 31 Froissart calls him Thomas lord of Berkeley, a young man in his first battle, and says he was son of Sir Maurice Berkeley, who died at Calais a few years before. Thomas the then lord of Berkeley, and elder brother of that Sir Maurice, was in the battle, but he was a man of over fifty, and he had his son Maurice with him for his first campaign. That Baker should be right, and Froissart wrong, on a point peculiarly within Froissart's province, is a striking incidental testimony to Baker's trustworthiness. charged on his own private account into the retreating mass, and was, as might be expected, taken prisoner, desperately wounded, after performing prodigies of valour. The breathing time was spent in carrying back the wounded into safety behind the hedges, and in gathering as many arrows as possible, for the stock was running short. It speaks volumes for the deadliness of the shooting at that short range, that the chronicler speaks of the archers drawing the arrows out of the bodies of the dead and wounded, not picking them up from the ground. The French king, on hearing that his son had been beaten back, swore solemnly that he would not leave the field that day, unless dead or a prisoner, and led on the third line. The English, all of whom, except the prince's small reserve, had now been fighting for hours against heavy odds, were nearly worn out; a great many had been wounded, and the numbers left seemed too small to withstand another onset. At this juncture some dismay was caused by the Captal de Buch, a Gascon noble who won a great reputation in the latter part of the war, riding off the field followed by a handful of men-at-arms and a hundred archers. It was naturally imagined that he was flying or deserting: instead of this, he had obtained the prince's permission to make a bold stroke for victory, by circling round the French flank and attacking them in their left rear. This third conflict was the severest of all, the more so as the archers, their arrows being exhausted, had to resort to their bills. At length the Captal de Buch was seen emerging from beyond the slightly rising ground which had masked his movements from the French, displaying the red cross of St. George as a signal: thereupon the Black Prince charged with his reserve of mounted men-at-arms. The day was finally won: though the king of France fought on desperately for awhile, showing himself as good soldier as he was bad general, he was at length obliged to surrender himself prisoner.

A long list of nobles and knights interred in the churches of Poitiers, another long list of distinguished captives, mark the overwhelming nature of the defeat which the French had sustained. So great was the number of prisoners that the Black Prince released a very large part, on their undertaking to pay their ransom at Bordeaux. The English loss must have been severe, relatively to the force engaged, though no authoritative figures can be given. The French of course lost much more heavily; but the mere number of slain was as nothing compared to the crushing effect of the unexpected blow. Had there been any spirit of resistance left in the French, the Black Prince could hardly have reached Bordeaux in safety. The relics of the army defeated at Poitiers must have amounted to several times his diminished force: yet he carried off his noble prisoners, with all the spoil of the royal camp and of his previous raid, without a trace of opposition.

It would almost seem as if Edward III. and his son never seriously contemplated the subjugation of France: for instead of attempting to take advantage of the virtual dissolution of all government resulting from the defeat of Poitiers and the king's capture, the Black Prince returned to England with his prisoner. The treaty of Bretigny, by which Edward resigned his claims to the French crown, and the French king abandoned all suzerainty over the south-west, was a reasonable solution of the difficulty, if nothing had been at stake but the personal pretensions of the two monarchs. But the national feelings of the French were too strongly roused: the treaty was never carried out. John's son and successor Charles V., or rather his military adviser the Constable Duguesclin, learned wisdom from the crushing defeats of Crecy and Poitiers, and steadily abstained from confronting English armies in the field. All the arts of minor warfare, raids, surprise of castles, cutting off of small parties, were adopted against the English, and the success though slow was steady, and was twofold. Outnumbered from the nature of the case, the English could not but lose in a war thus carried on; and the French subjects of the Black Prince were alienated, through being exposed both to injury at the hands of their own countrymen, and to heavy demands on their resources made by the prince to help him fight a losing game. Gradually things went more and more against the English, until by the time the Black Prince's health failed, and he went home to die, little was left beyond a few towns, which were bound to England by commercial ties. Nor was this all; in the second active stage of the great war, when Henry V. was formally accepted as heir to the French crown, the south-west was the region in which the cause of the Dauphin, the national cause, was most steadily supported.