Today is the anniversary of....

Robert:

As you will see, I am a European history buff.

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, in 1415, in which Henry V and his exhausted, sickly and underfed army of around 6,000 to 9,000 English knights, longbowmen, and men at arms, defeated a rested and better equipped French force that outnumbered them roughly 4 to 1. Some accounts say 6 to 1. And the French had cavalry!! And this was on French soil, near Calais.

How Henry pulled this off is really a study of grace, inspiration and brilliance under immense pressure and against terrifying odds. It is taught at West Point.

He was not only a brilliant field general, he fought hand to hand alongside his men, front and center. He used the Frenchmen's wild overconfidence, the slope of the land, the narrowness of the battlefield (hemmed in by thick forest on either side) and the deep mud of the freshly ploughed field, all to brilliant, brilliant advantage, turning a desperate and apparently hopeless situation into a stunning victory. There were very few Englishmen killed that day, most accounts say fewer than 200; but many thousands of French died. Some accounts indicate that 6,000 to 7,000 French knights died in just the first ninety minutes of battle.

Both sides had chroniclers and historians present, to witness and record the battle, so there is a surprising amount of specific info about what transpired over those three and a half hours. It was one of the most important battles of  the Hundred Years War.

However, near the end of the battle, Henry committed a war crime, even according to the laws of chivalry of those days. His men were holding a huge number of French prisoners, more French prisoners than there were British soldiers to guard them, with weapons of the fallen still lying all over the field, and suddenly, Henry thought he saw signs of French reinforcements coming. He feared he would lose control of the prisoners in the chaos of defending against a new attack, and that the prisoners would be able to easily re-arm themselves from the weapons on the field, and join in the new attack. So, he made a snap decision to execute thousands of French prisoners on the spot. He lined them up in front of rows of his archers; others were locked in barns and storage buildings which were set on fire.

The feared attack never came; so go the horrors of the fog of war.

In Henry the V, Shakespeare handles this event with a classic Machiavellian interpretation. Namely, that a great king must be noble and good hearted, but able to be utterly ruthless in an instant when the situation demands it. And Henry's bona fides of prior goodness and nobility are substantial.  For example, a few weeks before, the British had besieged the French town of Harfleur, and after it fell, he saw to it that the citizens were well treated and not widely abused. Those who did not wish to swear allegiance to Henry were allowed to leave with their possessions and even given a tiny amount of traveling money. Henry's soldiers were strictly forbidden abuses or atrocities, although undoubtedly some renegades ignored the rules and tried to take advantage of the French. One British soldier robbed a church in the village, and Henry had him hanged.