Agincourt

Friday 25 October 1415
====The battle of Agincourt was fought in France near the town of Azincourt in modern day France. This battle consisted of the English fighting the French. This battle was a major battle in the Hundred Year's War and one of the most important in Henry V's campaign.====

====This battle is significant because of the result of the French being cut off and crippled from a demoralising defeat. The strategies and the numbers of men also revolutionised the way that many Generals fought in the future. The numbers for England were estimated at around 5,000 to 30,000 and the French anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000.====

====Henry V's tactics were different and unique, the archers were asked to pick up discarded weapons and fight as an infantry. When their supply of arrows was gone instead of after the battle when they have no more arrows they would pick up extra weapons and have extra weapons for their benefit. After the battle many kings tried to copy Henrys tactics but they were not as well trained and disciplined as Henrys archers. I think that the new way of fighting was just the old way but using his head Henry used all of his men to full potential instead of taking the archers of the battle field when all of their arrows were gone. Warfare was moving on from charging into each other in to an art and in which manoeuvres and strategies were put in place to circle the enemy or to divide it in half or to flank them and bring the entire army down. Having men who are archers but also skilled in hand to hand to hand fighting, they could be used as infantry as well. Henry also made a good choice in choosing archers instead of crossbow men.====

====This battle has been made into books, movies, documentaries and even a play written by William Shakespeare written in 1599. The movie has been remade many times in its life because of movie making technology becoming better and better and little bits have been added into the movie because historians would get little bits of information on the battle each time they remake the movie. After this battle many kings wanted to become allies with Henry and for political reasons became a very important battle of the time. Even now many people still talk about this famous battle in books or history essays today. There were eye witnesses at the battle who documented it. They were both French people, so the information they gave may have been bias or wrong information.====

====There was a shift in balance of power after the smashing of the French. The French army and their government were made very weak by the defeat. By 1420, most of North France had been conquered by England. In 1420 Henry was named as heir to the French throne when Charles VI died. Henry was heir of the French throne for 2 years before dying of dysentery.====

The Hundred year war -
====The hundred year war consisted of many battles between England and France. This war goes back to 1066 in the reign of William the Conqueror. After he won the battle of Hastings he united everyone and ruled them.====

====The feudal system meant that knights had to provide the king with soldiers when the king went to war, but war had moved on from the time of the Battle of Hastings and the longbow was now the most feared of weapons and not the knight on horseback. The king's officials went around England looking for skilled archers. All young men in this time were expected to practice archery, so there were many archers. It was left to a village to decide who would actually go to war but the village as a whole would have to look after the families affected by someone leaving. Those who went were paid three pence a day.==== ====Armies were very expensive. Fighting a war out of your own country made them even more expensive. In France the people were made to pay a tax or ‘tribune’ so the cost was kept down and they could purchase supplies and food.====

Was there any Unexpected outcomes?

There wasn't really an unexpected outcome because the English had the best starting position, much better tactics and they used the wet and muddy battlefield conditions to their advantage. Although the French had more knights, the English were able to put that aside and make tactics and the terrain work to their advantage and win the battle.