THE ART OF WAR IN THE MIDDLE AGES 71
The Moral of the Battle of Formigny
6.14. The Moral of the Battle of Formigny
But the English commander adhered rigidly to his defensive tactics, and while he waited motionless, the fate of the battle was changed. The troops who had charged were attacked by one of the flank battles of French men-at-arms, who had dismounted and advanced to win back the lost cannon: a desperate fight took place, while the English strove to drag the pieces towards their lines, and the enemy to recapture them. At last the French prevailed, and pushing the retreating body before them reached the English position. The archers were unable to use their arrows, so closely were friend and foe intermixed in the crowd of combatants which slowly rolled back towards them. Thus the two armies met all along the line in a hand-to-hand combat, and a sanguinary mêlée began.
The fate of the battle was still doubtful when a new French force arrived in the field. The Counts of Richemont and Laval, coming up from St. Lo, appeared on the rear of the English position with 1200 men-at-arms. All Kyriel’s troops were engaged, and he was unable to meet this new attack. His men recoiled to the brook at their backs, and were at once broken into several isolated corps. Gough cut his way through the French, and reached Bayeux with the cavalry. But Kyriel and the infantry were surrounded, and the whole main battle was annihilated. A few hundred archers escaped, and their commander, with some scores more, was taken prisoner, but the French gave little quarter, and their heralds counted next day three thousand seven hundred and seventy-four English corpses lying on the field.
Seldom has an army suffered such a complete disaster: of Kyriel’s small force not less than four-fifths was destroyed. What number of the French fell we are unable to ascertain: their annalists speak of the death of twelve knights, none of them men of note, but make no further mention of their losses. ‘They declare what number they slew,’ sarcastically observes an English chronicler, ‘but they write not how many of themselves were slain and destroyed. This was well nigh the first foughten field they gat on the English, wherefore I blame them not; though they of a little make much, and set forth all, and hide nothing that may sound to their glory.’
The moral of Formigny was evident: an unintelligent application of the defensive tactics of Edward III and Henry V could only lead to disaster, when the French had improved in military skill, and were no longer accustomed to make gross blunders at every engagement. Unless some new method of dealing with the superior numbers and cautious manœuvres of the disciplined compagnies d’ordonnance of Charles VII could be devised, the English were foredoomed by their numerical inferiority to defeat. It was probably a perception of this fact which induced the great Talbot to discard his old tactics, and employ at his last fight a method of attack totally unlike that practised in the rest of the Hundred Years’ War. The accounts of the battle of Chatillon recall the warfare of the Swiss rather than of the English armies. That engagement was a desperate attempt of a column of dismounted men-at-arms and billmen, flanked by archers, to storm an intrenched camp protected by artillery. The English, like the Swiss at Bicocca, found the task too hard for them, and only increased the disaster by their gallant persistence in attempting to accomplish the impossible.
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