1346, August 26 - the Battle of Crecy took place, near the small village of Crecy in northern France. It became one of the most important battles of the Hundred Years War. The combination of new types of weapons and tactics used by the British in battle has led many historians to conclude that the Battle of Crecy marked the end of medieval chivalry.
The Hundred Years War between England and France is considered the longest war in world history. Indeed, this protracted conflict lasted from 1337 to 1453, that is, 116 years. But … this war was strange. Long periods of hostilities were replaced by no less long, sometimes up to a quarter of a century, stages of peaceful coexistence. And the participants themselves, and their descendants, had never heard of any Hundred Years War.
There was an Edwardian war, there was a Lancaster war, there was a Carolingian (Dugesclein war), and there was no Hundred Years. It turns out that the term "Hundred Years War" itself is rather late, it is a little over 150 years old. Only in 1860 did the French historians of the Second Empire introduce this new, not very accurate concept into scientific circulation. But if we proceed from this understanding of history, then the legendary Punic Wars should be considered as a single protracted conflict, which lasted, by the way, 118 years (from 264 to 146 BC), that is, two years longer.
It should be noted that this is far from the limit - the Age of Fighting Kingdoms, this almost continuous war of seven states for hegemony in China, lasted for nearly 200 years! And many of the English historians call the period from 1689 to 1815, filled with an endless series of Anglo-French conflicts, the Second Hundred Years War.
Preceding events. Balance of forces
All this, however, does not diminish the significance of the Hundred Years War in European and world history. Beginning as a dynastic conflict, it became the first ever war of nations. Her main battles marked the beginning of the end of chivalry, first introduced Europe to firearms. And the first of these great battles was the famous Battle of Crécy.
The battle was preceded by a prolonged raid by the British army across Normandy. 1346 July - 32,000 soldiers landed at Cape La Gogue in Normandy - 4,000 cavalry and 28,000 infantry, including 10,000 English archers, 12,000 Welsh and 6,000 Irish infantry - under the command of the king himself. All Normandy was devastated. In response, King Philip VI of France directed his main forces against Edward. In total, the French had 12,000 cavalry and up to 40,000 infantry and militia.
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Edward, with the main part of the army, crossed the Seine and the Somme and went north of Abbeville, where at the town of Crécy he decided to give the French troops pursuing him a defensive battle. A very good place was chosen for this. A gentle slope rose above the road along which the French army was to pass. The next day the British diligently set up their defensive positions here. Their right flank, near Crecy, was protected by the Me River. On the left flank, in front of the village of Vadikur, a grove grew, besides, the British infantry managed to dig several ditches there before the battle.
By the very moment of the Battle of Crecy, the English army was much smaller than the French, especially inferior in cavalry. Froissart in his "Chronicle" defines the number of the British at only 8,500 people, modern historians estimate their number at 15 - 20,000. But be that as it may, the French army was no less than twice, and perhaps three times superior to the English. Hence, Edward's choice of tactics, and careful preparation of the battlefield, and a well-thought-out balance of forces for defense purposes.
The alignment of forces
The right-wing division was nominally commanded by 16-year-old Edward, Prince of Wales, who later became famous as the "Black Prince", but in reality the reins of government were in the hands of an experienced veteran of many campaigns, head of the Earl of Warwick's heraldic chamber. About three hundred meters to the northeast, a relatively shallowly echeloned left division under the command of the Counts of Arundel and Northampton was stationed.
Bridging the gap between the right and left divisions, there was the central division most deeply echeloned along the front (several hundred meters deep), under the command of Edward III himself. The monarch himself set up an observation post for himself at the mill, located approximately halfway between his own division and the "army" of the Prince of Wales. From this location, he could survey the entire battlefield and send orders to all field commanders.
The core of each division was a powerful phalanx of about a thousand dismounted heavy horsemen - lined up, according to some testimonies, in six rows with a front width of about 250 meters. On the flanks of each division, English and Welsh archers were pushed forward, both for the best view and so that the sectors of fire were reliably covered.
In front of the center of the army, the flank archers of the right and left divisions closed in such a way that their formation formed an inverted V, directed towards the enemy. Behind the center of each division was a small reserve of heavy cavalry ready for an immediate counterattack, in case the French advance could break through the front lines.
Battle of Crecy begins
The attacking French army could not boast of such a clear formation. King Philip succeeded, apparently, to push the Genoese crossbowmen forward, but the "heroic" knightly cavalry hardly obeyed order and orders. In addition, just as the vanguard of the French ran into the advanced orders of the British, a short thunderstorm began, a downpour passed, and the ground became wet.
When the sun, already leaning towards the west, peeped out again, the disciplined Genoese crossbowmen crossed the valley in a dense line and headed up the slope. Stopping about 150 meters from the British forward positions, they fired crossbow bolts, most of which did not reach their target. Then they moved forward again - and then a shower of English arrows, each almost a meter long, fell upon them.
Mixing the ranks, the Genoese rolled back. And then the French knights, who were impatient to get involved in the battle, spurred their horses and in a discordant avalanche launched an offensive right through the orders of the Genoese. Literally a moment later, the slippery slope was already covered with a solid mass of heavy, clumsy horses and riders clad in chain mail, stumbling right through the unfortunate Genoese, and the arrows of the British were pouring down into all this chaos.
By inertia, part of the French heavy cavalry was still able to reach the English defense line, where a short but fierce battle broke out. But after a few seconds, the French were counterattacked by the heavy cavalry of the Prince of Wales and thrown back.
Then, as they arrived, each subsequent detachment of the French column recklessly rushed into battle, immediately falling under the deadly English shelling. It should be noted that Edward III was able to organize the delivery of arrows extremely effectively, in addition, in between attacks, English archers went out to pick up arrows on the field. As a result, the carnage continued until dark - the French went on the attack 15 or 16 times, and each such wave was virtually choked with its own blood. Finally, the French despaired and played a retreat. The English army remained in their positions until dawn.
Losses
The losses of the French army in this battle were enormous. When Edward sent 3,000 cavalry out on reconnaissance the next morning, the British counted the number of those killed. The French lost 11 princes killed, 80 banner knights, 1,200 "ordinary" knights, 4,000 other horsemen. No one counted the dead infantrymen, but it is obvious that even here the count was at least in the thousands. British casualties are usually estimated at around 200, although it may very well be an underestimate.
Aftermath of the battle
The Battle of Crecy is, in fact, the first general engagement in which the new English tactic of the combined use of archers and dismounted knights was applied against large masses of knightly cavalry. Many historians consider this battle one of the turning points in military history, ending more than five hundred years of the rule of the knightly cavalry on the battlefield.
In addition, field artillery was used for the first time in the Battle of Crecy, although its role, for obvious technological reasons, was small in this particular battle. After Crécy, the crisis of classical medieval chivalry becomes an obvious fact, including for the most far-sighted contemporaries, to whom, alas, the kings of France did not belong. Well, the most direct consequence of the battle was the capture of the fortress port of Calais by the British, which became their outpost in France for more than 200 years.
S. Domanina