We Few, We Happy Few...

[stjames]

October 25th, 1415, Henry V of England and his lightly armoured infantry and archers defeated the heavily armoured French cavalry in the Battle of Agincourt on Saint Crispin's Day.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

 

[Totally Judy]

I love that poem. It was so cool when it was used in that movie that Danny DeVito was in. Can't remember the name of it right now. But when the DD guy stood there and recited this poem, it was awesome.

Judy

 

[maximus otter]

Thanks for remembering that glorious passage of English arms.

In memory of that legendary battle, I composed the following this morning:

Useful phrases to use when dealing with the French in 1415:

1. "Vous chantez seulement quand vous gagnez!"

(You only sing when you're winning)

2. "Venez m'attaquer si vous croyez que vous êtes assez fort!"

(Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough)

3. "Vous n'atteindrez jamais les hommes avec les arcs!"

(You'll never reach the archers)

4. "Oooh! celui piquera pendant longtemps!"

(Oooh! That's going to sting for a while!)

5. "Cela vous punira pour nous vendre des mollusques et crustacés chez Harfleur qui nous a donné la diarrhée!"

(That will teach you to sell us shellfish at Harfleur that gave us diarrhoea!)

6. "Maintenant admettrez-vous que nous posséder la France, chiennes?"

(Now will you admit that we own France, bitches?)

7. "Nous ne resterons pas parce que nous aimons le papier de toilette mou, la bière chaude et la nourriture qui est brune."

(We will not stay because we like soft toilet paper, warm beer and food that is brown)

This has been a maximus otter public service.

maximus otter

 

[shaldag]

Just another pome ritten by a dead white guy. Why shud we hafeta learn that stuff???


There may be something more evocative of heroism written in the English language, but I can't think of it right now.

Well done. St. James.:thumbup:

You too, Max. While your words do not quite come up to the level of the Bard, twe can hope that they also become part of the Western Canon.

 

[maximus otter]

WESTMORELAND:

O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING HENRY V:

What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

Proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

William Shakespeare
Henry V, Act 4, Sc. iii (edited)



maximus otter

 

[rebeltf]

The Battle of Agincourt was fought on 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day), in northern France as part of the Hundred Years' War. The combatants were the English army of King Henry V and that of Charles VI of France. The latter was commanded not by the incapacitated king himself, but by the Constable Charles d'Albret and various prominent French noblemen of the Armagnac party. The battle is notable for the use of the English longbow, which helped the English compensate for their inferior numbers. The battle was also immortalised (and somewhat fictionalised) by William Shakespeare as the centrepiece of his play Henry V.


The campaign
Henry V invaded France for several reasons. He hoped that by fighting a popular foreign war, he would strengthen his position at home. He wanted to improve his finances by gaining revenue-producing lands. He also wanted to take nobles prisoner either for ransom or to extort money from the French king in exchange for their return. The latter was a version of "Danegeld", which English kings had successfully employed before. Evidence also suggests that several lords in the region of Normandy promised him their lands when they died, but the King of France confiscated their lands instead.

Henry's army landed in northern France on 13 August 1415 and besieged the port of Harfleur with an army of about 12,000. The siege took longer than expected. The town surrendered on 22 September, and the English army did not leave until 8 October. The campaign season was coming to an end, and the English army had suffered many casualties through disease. Henry decided to move most of his army (roughly 9,000) to the port of Calais, the only English stronghold in northern France, where they could re-equip over the winter.

During the siege, the French had been able to call up a large feudal army which d'Albret deployed skilfully between Harfleur and Calais, mirroring the English manoeuvres along the river Somme, thus preventing them from reaching Calais without a major confrontation. The result was that d'Albret managed to force Henry into fighting a battle that, given the state of his army, he would have preferred to avoid. The English had very little food, had marched 260 miles in two and a half weeks, were suffering from sickness, and faced large numbers of experienced, well-armed and armoured Frenchmen.

However, the catastrophic defeat that the French suffered at the Battle of Agincourt allowed Henry to fulfil all his objectives. He was recognised by the French in the Treaty of Troyes (1420) as the regent and heir to the French throne. This was cemented by his marriage to Catherine of Valois, the daughter of King Charles VI.

Henry V did not live to inherit the throne of France. In 1422, while securing his position against further French opposition, he died of dysentery at the age of 34, two months before the death of Charles VI. He was succeeded by his young son, Henry VI. During his reign, the English were expelled from all of France except Calais by French forces, inspired by Joan of Arc, under the new French king, Charles VII.


The battle
Henry and his troops were marching to Calais to embark for England when he was intercepted by forces outnumbering his own.

The battle was fought in the defile (gorge) formed by the wood of Agincourt (close to the modern village of Azincourt) and that of Tramecourt. The army was positioned by d'Albret at the northern exit so as to bar the way to Calais. The night of 24 October was spent by the two armies on the ground, and the English had little shelter from the heavy rain.

Early on the 25th, Henry deployed his army (900 men-at-arms and 5,000 longbowmen) across a 750 yard part of the defile. It is probable that the English adopted their usual battle line of longbowmen on either flank, men-at-arms and knights in the centre, and at the very centre roughly 200 archers. The English men-at-arms in plate and mail were placed shoulder to shoulder four deep. The English archers on the flanks drove stakes into the ground in front of them to make cavalry veer off from the points. It has been argued that fresh men were brought in after the siege of Harfleur, however other historians argue that this is wrong, and that although 9,200 English left Harfleur, after more sickness set in, they were down to roughly 5,900 by the time of the battle.

The French were arrayed in three great lines called "battles" each with roughly 6,000; however the first is thought to have swelled to nearly 9,000. Situated on each flank were smaller "wings" of mounted men-at-arms and French Nobles (probably 2,400 in total, 1,200 on each wing), while the centre contained dismounted men-at-arms, many of whom were the 'cream' of France, including 12 princes of royal blood. The rear was made up of 6,000-9,000 (some sources estimate lower, some estimate higher) of late arriving men-at-arms and armed servants known as "gros varlets" . The 4,000-6,000 French crossbowmen and archers were posted in front of the men-at-arms in centre.

Contrary to popular belief, the French force was a force of paid soldiers led by experienced commanders, not an ill-disciplined force of levied noblemen.

Lack of reliable and consistent sources makes estimating the numbers on both sides very difficult. Estimates vary from 6,000 to 9,000 for the English, and from about 15,000 to about 36,000 for the French. Some modern research has questioned whether the English were as outnumbered as traditionally thought (see below). The English were probably not outnumbered as badly as the legend would have it, however most modern historians would accept that they were outnumbered by three to one or more.

An important factor in the battle was the terrain, which was very muddy from the recent rain. This deep mud favoured the English force because, once knocked to the ground, the heavily armoured French knights would find it very difficult to stand back up, eliminating them as an effective fighting force. The mud was deep enough that more than one knight suffocated after being knocked into it. The mud also increased the ability of the English archers to fight in the melee. Lightly armoured or even unarmoured compared to the men-at-arms on both sides, the archers suffered only minor problems from the mud.

French accounts state that, prior to the battle, Henry V gave a speech reassuring his nobles that if the French prevailed, the English nobles would be spared, to be captured and ransomed instead. However, the common soldier would have no such luck and therefore he told them they had better fight for their lives.


Map of the battleOn the morning of the 25th the French were still waiting for additional troops to arrive. The Duke of Brabant, the Duke of Anjou and the Duke of Brittany, each commanding 1,000-2,000 fighting men, were all marching to join the army. This left the French with a question of whether or not to advance towards the English.

For three hours after sunrise there was no fighting; then Henry, finding that the French would not advance, moved his army further into the defile. Within extreme bowshot from the French line (400 yards), the archers dug in pointed wooden stakes called palings, at an angle, to ward off cavalry charges, and opened the engagement with a barrage of arrows. It should be noted that these palings were an innovation. At Crécy and Poitiers, two similar battles between the French and the English, the archers had not had them.

The French at this point lost some of their discipline and the wings charged the archers, but were decimated and then driven back in confusion. The constable himself headed the leading line of dismounted men-at-arms, but weighed down by their armour and sinking deep into the mud with every step, they struggled to reach and engage the English men-at-arms. Wallowing in the mud, they were easy targets for the English bowmen. Once the French reached the English line it became worse: because of the number of men they had brought into the defile, the French were far too closely packed to even lift their weapons to attack the enemy. However, as casualties mounted and prisoners were taken, the French started to engage the line to good effect. The thin line of defenders was pushed back and Henry himself was almost beaten to the ground. But at this moment, the archers, using hatchets, swords and other weapons, penetrated the gaps among the now disordered French, who could not cope with their unarmoured assailants, and were slaughtered or taken prisoner. By this time the second line of the French had already attacked, only to be engulfed in the mêlée. Its leaders, like those of the first line, were killed or captured, and the commanders of the third line sought and found their death in the battle, while their men rode off to safety.

One of the greatest anecdotes of the battle occurred when Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, Henry V's youngest brother, was wounded in the abdomen. According to the story, Henry, upon hearing of his brother's wound, took his household guard and cut a path through the French and stood over his brother's body beating back waves of soldiers until Gloucester could be dragged to safety.

The only success for the French was a sally from Agincourt Castle behind the lines. Ysambart D'Agincourt seized the King's baggage with 1,000 peasants. Thinking his rear was under attack and worried that the prisoners would rearm, Henry ordered the slaughter of the captives (who could easily have helped themselves to the weapons strewn about the field). The nobles and senior officers, still wanting to ransom the prisoners, refused the task and the job fell to the common soldiers. Henry's actions could be regarded as savage, but if the captives had armed themselves, his army could have been caught between the remaining French forces and the prisoners.

In the morning, Henry returned to the battlefield and had any wounded Frenchman who had survived the night in the open killed. All the nobility had already been taken away and any commoners left on the field were too badly injured to survive without medical care.

Claims that the English losses were only thirteen men-at-arms (including Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York, a grandson of Edward III) and about 100 of the foot soldiers are not supported by reliable documentation and are quite unlikely given the ferocity of the fighting. Henry quite deliberately concealed the actual English losses by paying the English retinues at their pre-battle strengths while quickly spreading the story of only minor English losses which survive to this day. One fairly widely used estimate is that there were 450 English casualties. This is a not insignificant number in an army of 6,000, but far less than the thousands of French who were lost.

The French suffered heavily, mainly because of the massacre of the prisoners. The constable, three dukes, five counts and 90 barons (see below) were among the dead, and a number of notable prisoners were taken, amongst them the Duke of Orléans (the famous poet Charles d'Orléans) and Jean Le Maingre, Marshal of France.

Due to a lack of reliable sources it is impossible to give a precise figure for the French and English losses at Agincourt. What is clear though, is that in a battle where the English were considerably outnumbered, their final losses were much lower than those of the French.

The Battle of Agincourt did not result in Henry conquering France, but it did allow him to escape and renew the war two years later.

Courtesy of Wiki

 

[uncle Alan]

October 25th, 1415, Henry V of England and his lightly armoured infantry and archers defeated the heavily armoured French cavalry in the Battle of Agincourt on Saint Crispin's Day.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Gajoz remembered the one about Tommy Tompkins [or 'enry 'iggins ] & how in peacetime soldiers & dogs "Keep off the grass ".

My Korean era company commander [ now a retired full bird ] could recite it verbatum,even down to the accent.

Alas,TV,computer games & autos are killing the classics that we were raised with.


Uncle Alan

 

[maximus otter]

Gajoz remembered the one about Tommy Tompkins [or 'enry 'iggins ] & how in peacetime soldiers & dogs "Keep off the grass ".

TOMMY

by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

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!

maximus otter

PS: Henry Higgins is a character in Pygmalion/My Fair Lady