dear, dear Larry
Can't we have a clip of dear, dear Larry (gone, gone) doing the biz in 1944 instead of Sir Ken?
Today is St Crispin's Day, and the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt. On 25 October 1415, the scant forces of Henry V administered a righteous shoeing to a numerically superior French army, in the process securing immortality in the annals of British military legend. Disagreeably, some historians have attempted to …
St. Crispin's Day Speech - fight off:
Laurence Olivier's - Henry V 1944:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9fa3HFR02E
Richard Burton's - Henry V 1951
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU7NrnLsr5g
Kenneth Branagh's - Henry V 1989
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-yZNMWFqvM
For myself, I find LO too wooden, lacking the emotion required for such a speech.
RB starts well (and what a voice)..... but loses tonality, and ends up shouting and out of breath (the 40 woodbines before the show can't have helped).
KB - is this perfection or what?
The emotion and enthusiasm, is maintained throughout, till end of scene.
You can really believe the cheers shouted by his followers.
:)
It also helped that the narrow field let the English pack their pikes in like a hedgehog before their lines. Horses are not entirely stupid: While they will happily ride themselves to death if the rider does not know their limits, they draw the line at being ridden at speed into a wall of spikey death sticks. The terrain of the field rendered the French cavalry just about useless - which is exactly why Henry chose that spot to make his stand. He marched his army to exhaustion to secure the best possible spot in which to force the French into battle, and the strategy worked: The losses on the way to the battle were more than offset by the tactical advantage of the field.
Plus the English practice of men-at-arms fighting on foot, and the devastation wrought by the longbow in the hands of "hommes de nul valeur". You can't help thinking that it was snobbery that lost it for the French.
It also seems to have been their inability to learn from experience. The French problems at Agincourt were very similar to those they encountered at Crécy, 79 years earlier.
Only half covered here was the use of archers and the double indemnity they provided:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVuVtP_xepU
The ground would not have been very muddy in 2 hours of battle in October although we don't know the crop recently harvested we know it was covered in a carpet of leaves and two days worth of rain. Not a lot -unless the previous summer was wet. So not much worse than a football field, despite what the expert said.
It was the stadium /domino effect plus the French discounted the archers their bodkins being inferior to the French armour and the weather being adverse to the heavy use of the bows. If the strings snapped at full pull, the bow would break. And a wet sinew would soon stretch and weaken if retightened.
As you say the cavalry would not have frightened the English, they knew from Alexander's time that the spear was superior and there was nothing stopping the archers using spears. Perhaps being used to attract the cavalry into the trap because they seemed undefended and afraid to use the full power of the bows?
" nothing stopping the archers using spears."
except a lack of spears and spearheads.......and a lack of training
What the archers had was long poles, sharpened at both ends which could either be planted in the ground for protection against horse charges, or - in extremis - used as staves or pikes. Pole-fighting was a common skill among the English rural peasantry
I think Napoleon was more of a Rationalism type dictator and the wars of that period were a question of economics.
And even post WWI there was still a school of thought that the next war was more likely to be with France than anyone else in Europe despite the entente cordiale. The specification for British light ("day") bombers designs of the 1930s stipulated an operating range that would reach Paris.
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"Aren't there some protocols of the elders of Zion you should be w**king to?"
It's common knowledge that the Rothschilds were in bed with both sides of the conflict.
Nathan Mayer Rothschild
From 1809 Rothschild began to deal in gold bullion, and developed this as a cornerstone of his business. From 1811 on, in negotiation with Commissary-General John Charles Herries, he undertook to transfer money to pay Wellington's troops, on campaign in Portugal and Spain against Napoleon, and later to make subsidy payments to British allies when these organized new troops after Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign.
In 1818 he arranged a 5 million pound loan to the Prussian government and the issuing of bonds for government loans formed a mainstay of his bank’s business. He gained a position of such power in the City of London that by 1825–6 he was able to supply enough coin to the Bank of England to enable it to avert a liquidity crisis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Mayer_Rothschild#Business_career
James Mayer de Rothschild
An advisor to two kings of France, he became the most powerful banker in the country and following the Napoleonic Wars, played a major role in financing the construction of railroads and the mining business that helped make France an industrial power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Mayer_de_Rothschild#Biography
I always find it amusing how someone always pops up ready to hurl insults and abuse whenever these well-documented and substantiated facts are brought to light.
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You mentioned Richard III - as my son is currently studying at Leicester University I've been to sufficient presentations at open days there to know what happens next ... I assume some member of staff at Leicester will shortly post to remind us that "did you know, we helped find RIchard III"
It was actually the French-speaking Anglo-French fighting the French-speaking French French. This being the stereotypical version of history, the most French side had to lose. The English English probably sat at home hoping that the aristocracy would kill as many of themselves on both sides as possible. A lot of the archers were said to be Welsh.
Being serious for as long as I can manage, the problem with army estimation seems to be this; the Anglo-French consisted of a small army with relatively few camp followers owing to the difficulty of cross-Channel transport, whereas the French-French being local would have had a large home crowd around to assist. The actual professional soldier numbers would be expected to be closer. This was generally true of Hundred Year War battles. The high French death rate in a lot of these battles would be due to the Anglo-French massacring the home crowd as they got in the way during the retreat.
"relatively few camp followers "
I seem to remember reading somewhere that Henry actually abandoned his camp followers, and massacred those who tried to keep up with the army, simply to reduce the logistics nightmare of obtaining sufficient food. Essentially the washerwomen / cooks / wives / whores all got their throats cut if they didn't take the hint to disappear quickly
Indeed. In fact of course nothing much has changed since Kipling wrote this a century or more ago.
"I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.
I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.
Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.
We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.
You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!"
We do not treat them very much better than our forbears did.
Whilst Kipling was a man of his time he was a very gifted writer, poet and a keen observer. Given "our current involvement" the following may also be regarded as highly relevant:
"When the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East
'E acts like a babe an' 'e drinks like a beast,
An' 'e wonders because 'e is frequent deceased
Ere 'e's fit for to serve as a soldier.
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
So-oldier OF the Queen!
Now all you recruities what's drafted to-day,
You shut up your rag-box an' 'ark to my lay,
An' I'll sing you a soldier as far as I may:
A soldier what's fit for a soldier.
Fit, fit, fit for a soldier . . .
First mind you steer clear o' the grog-sellers' huts,
For they sell you Fixed Bay'nets that rots out your guts --
Ay, drink that 'ud eat the live steel from your butts --
An' it's bad for the young British soldier.
Bad, bad, bad for the soldier . . .
When the cholera comes -- as it will past a doubt --
Keep out of the wet and don't go on the shout,
For the sickness gets in as the liquor dies out,
An' it crumples the young British soldier.
Crum-, crum-, crumples the soldier . . .
But the worst o' your foes is the sun over'ead:
You must wear your 'elmet for all that is said:
If 'e finds you uncovered 'e'll knock you down dead,
An' you'll die like a fool of a soldier.
Fool, fool, fool of a soldier . . .
If you're cast for fatigue by a sergeant unkind,
Don't grouse like a woman nor crack on nor blind;
Be handy and civil, and then you will find
That it's beer for the young British soldier.
Beer, beer, beer for the soldier . . .
Now, if you must marry, take care she is old --
A troop-sergeant's widow's the nicest I'm told,
For beauty won't help if your rations is cold,
Nor love ain't enough for a soldier.
'Nough, 'nough, 'nough for a soldier . . .
If the wife should go wrong with a comrade, be loath
To shoot when you catch 'em -- you'll swing, on my oath! --
Make 'im take 'er and keep 'er: that's Hell for them both,
An' you're shut o' the curse of a soldier.
Curse, curse, curse of a soldier . . .
When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck,
Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck,
Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck
And march to your front like a soldier.
Front, front, front like a soldier . . .
When 'arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch,
Don't call your Martini* a cross-eyed old bitch;
She's human as you are -- you treat her as sich,
An' she'll fight for the young British soldier.
Fight, fight, fight for the soldier . . .
When shakin' their bustles like ladies so fine,
The guns o' the enemy wheel into line,
Shoot low at the limbers an' don't mind the shine,
For noise never startles the soldier.
Start-, start-, startles the soldier . . .
If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white,
Remember it's ruin to run from a fight:
So take open order, lie down, and sit tight,
And wait for supports like a soldier.
Wait, wait, wait like a soldier . . .
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!"
As I said in an earlier posting on this thread, little has changed.
*A reference to the Martini-Henry breach loading rifle that was standard issue at the time.
"Whilst Kipling was a man of his time he was a very gifted writer, poet and a keen observer."
He was also an early conservationist (parts of the Jungle Books are intended to stir people up against the maltreatment of animals and against sealing), and attacked the idea that Christianity was superior to other religions - in Kim, they are all shown as being about equal with the Catholic priest and the Buddhist abbot getting the highest scores. But, most of all, he stood up for engineers, repeatedly pointing out how essential they were to modern society.
> But, most of all, he stood up for engineers, repeatedly pointing out how essential they were to modern society.
As a dedicated Freemason, Kipling certainly drew the analogy between the engineer's place in modern society and the Masonic order.
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I think that it is possible that your memory may be mistaken here, although the reality of what happened does not exactly polish the chivalric image that Heny V liked to cultivate either. Shortly before the French attack Henry ordered the execution (murder?) of the French prisoners that they had already taken because he feared that he could not afford the guards being unavailable for the battle and/or the prisoners being a security threat whilst the battle was in progress. This is a side of his reputation that is often ignored.
The French had already deployed the Oriflamme ( a battle standard) to denote that they would not ransom any of the English taken. I.e. a 'take no prisoners' order. So it was never going to be a chivalrous fight that day.
"The French had already deployed the Oriflamme"
In Rabelais, Francois Villon advises an English king to paint an oriflamme in his chamber pot to ensure he never suffers from constipation. It was indeed intended to provoke terror among enemies.
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> It was actually the French-speaking Anglo-French
No, it wasn't. English had been growing in popularity in court circles through the 14th century and was made officially the language of court by Edward III in the 1360s. It remained so under Richard II and Henry IV and by Henry V's time, most court officials could no longer even speak French.
English or Latin was the choice of documents, because people could read them. Take your revisionist twaddle and shove it.
It was actually the French-speaking Anglo-French fighting the French-speaking French French.
Not so.
English replaced Norman-French as the court language in the reign of Edward III, at the start of the Hundred Years War, long before Agincourt (link). Ceremonial court language would have been decades behind the language people actually spoke, even at court.
Since the time of Edward I, popular myth suggested that the French planned to extinguish the English language, and as his grandfather had done, Edward III made the most of this scare (link). This suggests that English was fully accepted as the national language by Edward I (reigned 1272 to 1307), who is believed to have been taught it as a child.
.......highly skilled archers behind stakes who were at the same time being protected by men at arms combined with knights who at Henry's insistence fought on foot to support this effort (the French were not ignorant of it, they simply believed that they could overcome it). In order to come at the English the French had to charge across very boggy ground (Henry chose where to make his stand very carefully, he was after all a professional warrior unlike later Kings) and were in practice sitting ducks for some of the very best field archers in Europe at that time.
As I understand it, the French knights were wearing the latest and greatest in mild steel armour and thus not particularly vulnerable to arrows. Their horses were a different matter. The archers went on a killing spree with knives when the French knights were unhorsed and unable to defend themselves while fallen over on very boggy ground.
> Penetrate, but not injure at 20 metres:
Yeah, I dunno what was going on in that film but I've personally (from a 220lb longbow) put an arrow with a ballista bodkin head through a dummy wearing plate. It went through breastplate (16 gauge steel), chain worn beneath, padding, the dummy itself, the rear padding, the rear chain, the backplate (also 16g) and was hanging out by the fletchings.
Admittedly, it's a big bow and I almost certainly couldn't do it at 200 yards (this was a demonstration at about 30 yards, any further would compromise crowd safety because I might miss) but your film there is bollocks.
For what it's worth, I wear plate at re-enactments and it made me feel a bit twitchy about the whole thing, rubber blunts on arrows or not.
There are only 5 sources of existing medieval longbows:
The Spencer Bow with a draw weight of 100 lbs
The Mendlesham bow with a draw weight of 80 lbs
The Hedgeley Moor Bow with a draw weight of 50 lbs
The Flodden Bow with a draw weight of 90 lbs
The H.M.S. Mary Rose, a ship in the English fleet that sank off Portsmouth in 1545. There were 167 bows recovered from this ship with a draw weight average of 100 lbs.
You claim your more than twice as powerful bow (220 lb) generates a better estimate of medieval longbowmen effectiveness against armour than the simulation in the flim clip (not "mine" BTW). I say bollocks back at you.
The draw weight is partially a matter of not breaking style and partial a bragging rights/dicksizing thing.
Once you can easily draw your bow, you must move up in weight or else you'll get bad habits which mean that any off-time (loss of strength and technique) will injure you. I have four bows, a 60lb little thing I use for the battlefield so I don't kill anyone, a 140lb bow I use for long range practice, a (filthy disgusting) mongolian horsebow for demonstration purposes (goes around 110lb at my 34" draw) and the Bitch (220lb) which is only used for demos and as my personal exercise machine.
If you're questioning my bows, I've been shooting since I was six years old, I'm now 45. I'm also 6'4" inches tall and currently weigh around 18 stone, bodyfat somewhere around 13% right now. Due to the "stacking" effect of the compressing heartwood of a yew bow, the majority of the poundage arrives in the last six or so inches of draw. I have a very long draw. That means I do that demo because it looks really good for the punters.
I have seen the same dummy shot with a friend's 120lb yew self-bow. It didn't go all the way through but it did make it into the back padding. That's more than enough.
"The archers went on a killing spree with knives when the French knights were unhorsed and unable to defend themselves while fallen over on very boggy ground."
Henry's forces also used their mallets to finish off the knights on the ground.
It is said that the "V" sign originated in English/Welsh long bow archers showing their "draw string" fingers to the enemy. The French cut off those two fingers of captured archers. IIRC archery practice was a mandatory Sunday activity.
> It is said that the "V" sign originated in English/Welsh long bow archers showing their "draw string" fingers to the enemy. The French cut off those two fingers of captured archers.
This is true but nobody's quite certain why since they went on to hang them anyway.
Archers didn't get ransomed.
"This is true but nobody's quite certain why since they went on to hang them anyway."
The same could be said of being hanged, drawn, and quartered in England. It's about cruel punishment as revenge and as a deterrent to others.
Nowadays the enforcement of law is more humane - except that some innocent people are apparently subjected to public shaming, loss of their career, and considerable legal expenses before the allegations are withdrawn due to "insufficient evidence to charge" viz no evidence.
The war (and the peace) was lost because Henry died and his son Henry VI wasn't up to the job being about a year old.
And that also led to the Wars of the Roses.
Room for much speculation as to the future of Europe if Henry V had lived longer and by diplomacy/war had stabilised situation and passed some of his skills onto his son.
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"As I note above, neither of the sides in the Hundred Years War were "us"."
Most of the armies' complement would not have been from the knight upper classes. As to lineage - it may be difficult to trace a family tree but some English family names indicate a Norman ancestry. Not sure how well DNA testing can differentiate between the English Anglo-Saxon/Danish stock and the French Norman stock. Basically the same invaders settled in both places.
> As I note above, neither of the sides in the Hundred Years War were "us". Unless you are a member of the very old (and very inbred) upper classes.
And that's also not true because the odds are very high that you are, as I am*. Yes, from a bastard line but there have been a great many of those. These days, an English citizen pretty much needs to be descended from 20th century immigrant stock not to be related to Her Maj. And given the melting-pot nature of the UK (especially England) a great many of those are rapidly collecting the relevant ancestors.
* Actually, in my case, a bastard line of the Beauforts who are themselves a bastard line of John of Gaunt who, as you know, was Edward III's son and as such descended by circuitous route from a certain William the Bastard. There's a lot of it about.
"These days, an English citizen pretty much needs to be descended from 20th century immigrant stock not to be related to Her Maj. "
The same has been pointed out in reference to the Bible saying that Jesus Christ was of King David's line. By that time the gene pool would have been sufficiently mixed so that everyone in the Jewish population could have made that DNA claim.
English family names of Norman origins were presumably inherited from those in the Norman elite circles. The bastardisation could then have worked in reverse as they adopted other people's boys to carry on the name. Our related families' histories shows two cases of that happening in the 19th century. IIRC royal circles often needed elite witnesses to the birth to make sure a baby boy wasn't being imported in a warming pan.
We won the battle, but who won the war (not us).
The problem seems to have been that the mediæval military machines and the economies behind them simply lacked the resources for complete conquest. A king might be fabulously rich by comparison with most of his subjects, but he wasn't rich enough to pay for a standing army. The taxation system of the time was primitive and inefficient and the economies being taxed weren't very large.
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Frogs lost both of those wars didn't they?
They did, but not for lack of bravery. "Hell in a Very Small Place", by Bernard Fall, is an excellent account of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The French troops gave it all they had, including paratroops jumping into a battle thy knew they were going to lose. The generals who decided that a remote valley was the perfect place to demonstrate French military superiority were the ones to blame.
The Arc de Triomphe is also a war memorial. One can't help but be moved when reading the markers there.
I must commend El Reg for actually bothering to mention the 600th anniversary of Agincourt, as I was very disappointed to not see anything about this on the telly; let alone some kind of celebration at one of the English Heritage or National Trust sites.
Given the excitement over Back To The Future, I was expecting at least to see one of the Henry V films on any channel, even ITV+44 or whatever. Or how about one of those excellent documentaries, to be shown on Yesterday's History Discovery.
Nothing, nada, nul. *sigh*
"[...] as I was very disappointed to not see anything about this on the telly; [...]"
To quote BBC iPlayer from last week:
"England, wracked by plague and revolt, loses the upper hand until Henry V, determined to prove his right to be king, turns the tide at the battle of Agincourt."
It was a repeat from 2013 though.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01qsqd2/chivalry-and-betrayal-the-hundred-years-war-2-breaking-the-bonds-13601415