* ‘Azincourt Par Temps De Pluie’

25th October 1415

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the battle of Azincourt. Bear with me if I pronounce and write it the French way. I’m French, let’s put that behind us, and some (my husband, my son, my friends, everyone actually ?) say I have an accent, even when I write, so you will notice eventually…

I am French, and I want to talk about one of the worst beatings taken by the French army from the British? 

Well yes, because I read that book :

In this novel, published last year, novelist Jean Teulé narrates hour after hour of this bloody and disastrous (for the French) battle of the Hundred Years War, with his usual cinematographic writing and sense of historical detail. 

I could pitch the story for you, but he does it way better than I would, in an interview given to a French Radio on 02.02.2022: 

Jean Teulé: ‘’In the books I read about Azincourt, there were 200 pages to explain the political context, to tell the consequences, but the battle was quite summarised, and I wanted to do the opposite. I wanted to start the book the day before the battle, on Thursday, 24th October 1415, when the last French troops arrived, and finish the book the day after the battle, on Saturday. So that the reader feels like they were there and sees how something like this was organised.’’ 

Badly. I hope it’s not a spoiler for anyone, but the answer is: badly.

Jean Teulé: “This battle of Azincourt is incredible; it is the symbol of the stupidity, of the arrogance of the French nobility. It is a battle that should never have taken place. There was nothing to gain; there was no reason.” 

When Henry V, the young King of England, learned that the King of France was mad, he decided to invade France. 

Charles VI, AKA Charles le Fol (the Fool), was mad indeed. He thought he was made of glass. He had splints put on his arms, legs, and hoops around his chest; he refused to be touched for fear of breaking.  

Henry V arrived at the mouth of the Seine in August 1415. He wanted to go up the river, through Harfleur, to take Paris then France. 

Except that nothing went according plan. Harfleur resisted much more than expected, and the siege was still ongoing in mid-September. And it was raining and raining… All the food that Henry V had brought for his vast  army of 20,000 men rotted. 12,000 soldiers died, and the surviving ones were starving, exhausted and ridden with dysentery. 

On the 8th of October, he decided it was time to cut his losses, and walk up the coast to Calais to sail back to England.  

But suddenly, the French woke up and formed a considerable army which chased the English and blocked their passage 70 km from Calais, close to a village called Azincourt. 

The English did not understand: “It was when we arrived that they should have attacked. Not when we leave!”  

From that moment onward, all the French did was a string of mistakes and bad decisions, one after the other. 

They were so certain of their victory :

They were 30,000 French men in plate armour, in great shape, against 5,000 sick Englishmen.

 However, the French were wiped out. All French chivalry disappeared in this battle. 6,000 nobles.” 

The battle field was probably the most significant factor in deciding the outcome. The battle took place on a recently ploughed field, sandwiched between two dense patches of wood. The weather had been rainy for some time, so the land was very muddy and soggy.

The night before the fighting began, King Henry V ordered his men to wait in the darkness in silence – And prayed. 

The overconfident French were drinking and partying, celebrating their inevitable victory.

Indeed, on the morning of the battle, drawn up in three lines, the French embodied power and awe.  And for three hours, they simply held their position, a textbook military strategy.

But the laws of physics being what they are, the heavily armoured men and horses standing on the soft soil started to sink into it, and when Henry gave the (risky) order to attack, the French knights were all stuck knee-deep in the mud and anyway, being so eager to be the first for the kill, the three ranks were packed so closely together that they didn’t have enough space to use their weapons properly.

When they tried to move, painfully staggering through the mud, they were sitting ducks for the lightly armoured (if at all!) English and Welsh longbowmen, who started to shoot. And it started raining, again: arrows this time; enough to darken the sky, according to the narrative. (One single archer could shoot as many as 10 arrows per minute!)

And the slaughter began. The horses panicked, trampling knights in their attempt to flee; the second and third lines were pushing from behind, falling on top of the dead and being killed, too, with axes and lead mallets once the archers ran out of arrows.

Everyone agrees it was a massacre. Many French knights, trapped inside their expensive armour, suffocated or drowned in the mud. 

The return of Henry V to London, 

St George the Martyr Church

St George the Martyr stands in Borough High Street, Southwark, but this location in the 15th Century was the junction of two of the most ancient highways from the Roman period, “Stane Street’’ and “Watling Street” and would be the first London church to be encountered by travellers coming from the south, just before crossing the Thames.  

There are remains of roman structures everywhere in this area.

This strategic position is no coincidence. The City Aldermen wanted that anybody who was somebody of importance (especially Royalty) travelling from the south or southeastern ports would be met at the church, 

And it is from the steps of St George that Henry was welcomed by a crowd of several hundred, as he returned to London in triumph on the 23rd of November. 

The Agincourt song (or Agincourt Carol), was commissioned as part of the celebration.

Note that now I write Agincourt. As already Henry V’s victory was becoming anglicised.

As well as the court : Henry started to use the English language to tell the tales of his military exploits, 

As well as the whole country : it was in this battle that the standard with the red cross was used for the first time, and the same year that St George became the Patron Saint of England.

The epic tale reached the heart and soul of the ordinary people, too, through the Agincourt song of course, but with several other ballads, and one of the first historical plays ever written in England : ‘’The Famous Victories of Henry V’’ (premiered in the 1480s) and was later immortalised by William Shakespeare in ‘’Henry V’’.

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.’’

The triumph at Agincourt became an enduring part of the English National Myth, and a rallying cry in times of war. Winston Churchill echoed the phrase in his speech of 20 August 1940 when he said:

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few’’

It is also said it was Winston Churchill, too, who encouraged Laurence Olivier to make his movie during World War II.

And you know what? The United Kingdom is currently building a new Royal Navy submarine in their shipyards : what name did they choose ? HMS Agincourt…

Helene