Quote from: Spike;637658Forgive me for taking a slight liberty with my choice of words.  Would it have gone over better if I'd said 'William the conquerer and his lads founded England', so that you knew I was only slightly... ah... taking the piss I belive its called?

Sure why not, 'great britain' in the original French after all was 'Grand Bretagne', Greater Brittany.

Quote from: Spike;637658As far as legitimacy of tactics, I'm not sure I can be overly concerned. I mean, the English army was outnumbered ten to one, more or less. As I recall the French were also outraged that mere peasants would pull a Knight (nobility) out of the line and proceed to butcher him five to one (or more) with peasant weapons... during the battle.  Because it would be dishonorable for the other knights to lower themselves by going to help out... seeing as they'd be fighting mere peasants.

Most accounts agree on five to one in terms of numbers, and the outrage was fairly high long before battle was joined. Not sure where you're going with the legitimacy of tactics, the French fucked up badly in numerous areas, but establishing a defensive position with stakes and archers was par for the course by that stage. This is why the French brought along mercenary crossbowmen, to keep the archers ducking. Had they used them properly the outcome might have been different, but of course as I said they didn't allow them to take their shields out.

Quote from: Spike;637658Sure. That sounds pretty bad. Just out of curiousity though: What do you think the French army would have done to the English if they'd won?

An educated guess would be select executions and ransom for the rest. Henry's forces looted so much from the field at Agincourt that the army couldn't move; as a result Henry ordered the loot collected and burned. I assume it was for similar reasons that the prisoners, who had a high value, were executed rather than ransomed. Your lives or your loot, lads - that I suspect was the most stirring speech given during the event.

Quote from: Spike;637658I'm merely... outraged?... that you think its appropriate to apply a very modern (seventy year old more or less) concept such as 'War Crimes' to a battle that happened that long ago.

Or I'm just bored and starting internet slap fights to keep from utter disinterest.

Seems likely, as I did qualify the comment by saying "if they were done today". The anger of the French forces played a large part in their defeat, and as such it is worth emphasising the outrages inflicted on France by marauding Englishmen.

Quote from: The Traveller;637664Sure why not, 'great britain' in the original French after all was 'Grand Bretagne', Greater Brittany.

I did almost use Britain in the first post, had to go back and edit England in just before posting, so there is that.

QuoteMost accounts agree on five to one in terms of numbers, and the outrage was fairly high long before battle was joined.

I dunno. I keep thinking 40k french knights, and 3500/1500 or so (yoemen/knights) for the English, but then too, I'm 'Merica (fuck yeah, or whatever) and I haven't read up on it in years. That's closer to 8 to 1, certainly, but no where near 5 to 1.

Still, clear advantage to the French, either way.

QuoteNot sure where you're going with the legitimacy of tactics, the French fucked up badly in numerous areas, but establishing a defensive position with stakes and archers was par for the course by that stage.

Specifically, you brought up the 'Galling Arrows' in a fashion that made it seem... illegitimate, possibly related to your war crimes charge.  I argue that if you bring five guys to fight me, I'm not going to attempt to use the marquis of queensbury rules to fight back. I might even bite at that point, if I think it will let me win.

The more specific incidents of 'illegitimate tactics' was allowing the mere peasants to 'gang up' on the poor French Knights (who did have, after all an overall numeric, and equipment, advantage over said peasants...), which was totally unsporting. That's what I recall, anyway, from Keegan.  

QuoteThis is why the French brought along mercenary crossbowmen, to keep the archers ducking. Had they used them properly the outcome might have been different, but of course as I said they didn't allow them to take their shields out.

Again, Keegan (my source... now a decade!!! in the past (yikes!), suggests that the knights, by chosing to ignore the yoeman archers almost entirely in order to focus on the much smaller number of English Knights, was the single biggest problem they had (thus the English line having small wedges of knights scattered throughout the Yoemen, rather than grouped up in a mass for the French to engage).

QuoteAn educated guess would be select executions and ransom for the rest.

I rather suspect that no Yoeman would have been ransomed. While my apocryphal tale of the origins of the middle finger salute was included for human (I believe it is accepted by experts that the middle finger is much older and more universally 'rude' than that...), I doubt they would have been let go with a mere maiming.

QuoteHenry's forces looted so much from the field at Agincourt that the army couldn't move; as a result Henry ordered the loot collected and burned.

Sure. I'm pro-looting in general, at least on the battlefield. Then again, I live in a pro-recycling neighborhood, leaving fine swords and armor to rot in the rain is just wasteful.

But if you want to make 'Warcrimes' a charge, tell me (I honestly don't know...), did the English Army move into the village of Agincourt and begin looting there?  Were they forever after plagued with English sons... and if so was is rape, or do french milkmaids like winners regardless of what language they speak?

QuoteSeems likely, as I did qualify the comment by saying "if they were done today".

Don't mistake the rhetorical use of the question-mark. I don't deny it.

QuoteThe anger of the French forces played a large part in their defeat, and as such it is worth emphasising the outrages inflicted on France by marauding Englishmen.

I would rather think it was the ridiculously stupid emphasis on martial honor, beyond any reasonable thinking man's standard, that led to their defeat.  

Beyond that, I'm not sure the French Nobility needed any more outrage than 'some dirty englishmen are stomping around our french countryside claiming they own it'.  Seriously.

Quote from: Spike;637672I would rather think it was the ridiculously stupid emphasis on martial honor, beyond any reasonable thinking man's standard, that led to their defeat.

The English were merely relearning a lesson taught by the Spartans almost two millennia preivously, that it doesn't matter how large the opposing army is once they are happy to run onto the ends of your spears in a nice orderly fashion.

French failures at Agincourt can be summed up fairly simply - they channelled their forces into a bottleneck, compounded the mistake by running them across deep, damp, slippery clay so tightly packed that they couldn't even swing a sword, and delivered their own coup de grace by removing their own covering fire. Once again we learn that the best way to defeat someone is by letting them mess themselves up.

It's fascinating how often throughout history the same mistakes are made, speaking as a student of warfare in all of its forms as the ultimate expression of the voice of the Demos, political power in the raw as it were.

The use of galling arrows may have been a deliberate attempt to provoke the French by Henry, he was certainly savvy enough to try it, particularly given that in the main injuries would have been sustained by horses and unarmoured retainers. It would have been annoying but no more illegitimate than dropping beplagued corpses over a fortress wall to break a siege, also an established tactic.

I thought the french left their horses behind in Agincourt, due to the slippery clay?

Quote from: Spike;637682I thought the french left their horses behind in Agincourt, due to the slippery clay?

Not according to Jehan de Wavrin, son of a Flemish knight of the time:

Quote...The French had arranged their battalions between two small thickets, one lying close to Agincourt, and the other to Tramecourt. The place was narrow, and very advantageous for the English, and, on the contrary, very ruinous for the French, for the said French had been all night on horseback, and it rained, and the pages, grooms, and others, in leading about the horses, had broken up the ground, which was so soft that the horses could with difficulty step out of the soil.

And also the said French were so loaded with armour that they could not support themselves or move forward. In the first place they were armed with long coats of steel, reaching to the knees or lower, and very heavy, over the leg harness, and besides plate armour also most of them had hooded helmets; wherefore this weight of armour, with the softness of the wet ground, as has been said, kept them as if immovable, so that they could raise their dubs only with great difficulty, and with all these mischiefs there was this, that most of them were troubled with hunger and want of sleep.

[The French knights] struck into these English archers, who had their stakes fixed in front of them... their. horses stumbled among the stakes, and they were speedily slain by the archers, which was a great pity. And most of the rest, through fear, gave way and fell back into their vanguard, to whom they were a great hindrance; and they opened their ranks in several places, and made them fall back and lose their footing in some land newly sown; for their horses had been so wounded by the arrows that the men could no longer manage them.

In any case it doesn't matter, thousands of men or horses will ultimately have the same effect on boggy ground. Funny how the writer bemoans the loss of horses without a concern for the lives of the men; a sign of the times, I suppose.

Well, who you gonna belive: Me or the lying eyes of someone who was there?

Rather than bog down economics by further, unnecessary, debate on Agincourt, which I doubt even we happy few care about anymore...

Let us instead question how the arrival of the English Survivors, bogged down with loot as it were, affected the English Economy at the time?

Quote from: RPGPundit;637550No one is trying to claim that looting and plunder wasn't happening.  What I was disputing was that it was in any way "honorable". It was not. Not by any meaningful definition of that: the Church forbade it, the Crowns tried to pretend it wasn't happening or they were controlling it, Shakespeare wrote about it in such a way that it was clearly seen as a seriously dishonorable act, painting a character who did it as dishonorable, and the one who punished him as honorable for punishing him for it.

RPGPundit

I still have to question your basis for this claim.  

Providing comfort for your enemy is dishonorable.  By depriving your enemy of food and supplies (as well as valuables), you decrease their ability to wage war.  

If you had an army and you found a dozens chests of gold in a village you had just 'captured', what do you do with it?  Leave it there?  

That money will just be claimed by the other side to hire more mercenaries.

Not only was looting EXPECTED, it was considered honorable in that it made your side more likely to win and the other side less likely.  The problem, as it were, was that the church wanted to discourage fighting among 'Christian Princes'.  

That wasn't an issue with the crusades (since the enemy wasn't Christian) and it wasn't really an issue after the Reformation (when the Church was actively encouraging Catholic rulers to go to war with Protestant rulers).  

Methinks you have a very white-washed view of the realities of warfare.

Quote from: Spike;637658I'm merely... outraged?... that you think its appropriate to apply a very modern (seventy year old more or less) concept such as 'War Crimes' to a battle that happened that long ago.

Welcome to the modern world. Virtually every modern critique of the past consists of hating our ancestors for not holding the same ideological positions or cultural beliefs we do. (Or falsely believing they did believe the exact same things we do, just so we don't have to hate them.)

I call it chrono-centrism, it's ethnocentrism towards people in the past.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;637726Welcome to the modern world. Virtually every modern critique of the past consists of hating our ancestors for not holding the same ideological positions or cultural beliefs we do. (Or falsely believing they did believe the exact same things we do, just so we don't have to hate them.)

I call it chrono-centrism, it's ethnocentrism towards people in the past.

Oh I don't hate them, my own Norman ancestors did more and worse quite gleefully. Just striking a chord....

Quote from: The Traveller;637729Oh I don't hate them, my own Norman ancestors did more and worse quite gleefully. Just striking a chord....

I didn't mean to imply you were committing chrono-centrism. (Even though I see now I totally did.) "Hatred" couldn't fairly be used to describe your position or statements.

Apologies.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;637731I didn't mean to imply you were committing chrono-centrism. (Even though I see now I totally did.) "Hatred" couldn't fairly be used to describe your position or statements.

Apologies.

Ah no not a bother, just clarifying the sentiment.

Quote from: Spike;637687Well, who you gonna belive: Me or the lying eyes of someone who was there?

Rather than bog down economics by further, unnecessary, debate on Agincourt, which I doubt even we happy few care about anymore...

Let us instead question how the arrival of the English Survivors, bogged down with loot as it were, affected the English Economy at the time?

From the article I linked to earlier (worth a read by the by)

The impact on English society of the wealth won from war has never been fully analysed, and indeed perhaps it cannot be. For it was essentially the lucky individual who gained; for each soldier who made money on the scale of Sir John Fastolf there were many who made nothing at all, and a few who lost everything by being captured themselves or, like Sir John Grey, did not live long enough to enjoy their profits. Some of the wealth won from war was invested in land: the Earl of Arundel's systematic purchase of manors in Surrey and Sussex in the 1370s probably represented the investment of the profits of war. Some money, as Leland realised, was spent on that most conspicious of all forms of consumption, building. Sir John de la Mare thought to have financed the building of Nunney Castle in Somerset out of wealth gained in France, and there is little doubt that Fastolf used his income from France in building his castle at Caistor-by-Yarmouth. Most conspicuously of all, Edward III spent some of the ransom of John II on building works at Windsor Castle, where the remodelled royal apartments represent one of the most enduring monuments to the wealth the English won from war in France. Some individuals greatly enhanced their social status by means of their gains in war and their rewards from a grateful king for their deeds of valour on the battlefield. The prospect of gain was a powerful incentive to serve in the king's wars, and did perhaps more than anything else to sustain popular support for the war; but when set beside the long-term effects of demographic decline and economic contraction it would be hard to show that the wealth won from war, however powerful a motivating force on individuals, had more than a marginal impact on English society in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Worth nothing that when William the Conqueror conquerored he wasn't French. He was a Norseman who was living in France Rollo who first set up Normandy was a Viking and its only 6 generations to William.
Anyway for we English we have to hold onto the notion that William was a Viking that spoke French as opposed to a Frenchman because hte idea of being conquered by a Frenchman is beyond the Pale

Quote from: jibbajibba;637751Anyway for we English we have to hold onto the notion that William was a Viking that spoke French as opposed to a Frenchman because hte idea of being conquered by a Frenchman is beyond the Pale

I know, it's a source of ongoing entertainment for us celts. Happy Paddy's day!

Quote from: The Traveller;637821I know, it's a source of ongoing entertainment for us celts. Happy Paddy's day!

Slainte!

(and the welsh just trounced us at rugby as well....)

I never claimed William and his lads were French, merely that they had a claim to Normandy.  

On the other hand, the article itself, or the exerpted portion of it, was extremely fascinating from the perspective of showing how a loot based shadow economy would work, with real world examples.  

I don't think there is a fine distinction to be made between loot made on the battlefield and loot gained in dungeon crawls, except for the potential political aspect, as battlefield loot was probably gained in direct service to the local lord, with all that implies.

We can essentially write off the comments about the losers in the loot game in the article for our purposes. One might suggest that in the battlefield loot senario, that looting's impact on the economy is roughly offset by the looting and ransoming done by the other side, but unless we are setting up Team Monster as a political entity opposed to, and regularly warring with, Team Civilization that doesn't really apply to our cause.

It is the examples of Sir John Falstof and Nunnery Castle that are indicative of what happens in a loot based shadow economy.  Only, we don't know much more of Falstof in the exerpt, other than he hit it big in the loot game.


The suggestion is that getting wealthy by looting is both legitimate and disruptive, a threat to the local lord's power. To reduce the threat the looter's social status is enshrined, making him a part of the power elite, and in return he spends his wealth freely on things like castles and men at arms in service to the local lord for the next legitimate war.


One thing that is under-discussed in conversations about the disruptive effects of an adventurer loot economy is what exactly are the demographics of success... or rather, how many failed, presumably killed, adventurers are their for every guy that makes it to fifth level (say), with a fat purse of gold?

The reason your average McDonalds guy doesn't go hunting drug dealers to escape his woeful existance is that it is extremely dangerous (coupled with the sad fact that, while he is actually doing a societal good, even if he were successful he himself would be jailed for murder and his wealth confisticated, adding a second significant risk factor...).

Ditto adventuring or going to war. THe chances of wild success don't have to be great to have an impact, but the chances of painful death, or even just miserable failure, are high enough to make it an unattractive option for MOST people.  Presumably too, most people are also at least partially shackled by social constraints, as our drug dealer hunters above.