Drinking Our Way Through History
Step into a time-traveling adventure with Drinking Our Way Through History, where Cooper and Ian uncork the fascinating secrets of the past. Embark on an enlightening and uproarious podcast experience as they uncover legendary figures, awe-inspiring sites, captivating spectacles, and remarkable events, all with a quirky blend of humor, intrigue, and heartwarming tales. Sip along as we immerse ourselves in history's intoxicating depths, turning moments of the past into unforgettable memories. Cheers to an epic journey!
Drinking Our Way Through History
Episode 27: Battle of Agincourt - Braving the Bloody Middle Ages
Today, Cooper and Ian are diving headfirst into one of the bloodiest, sloppiest, and most legendary battles of the Middle Ages, The Battle of Agincourt! The Battle of Agincourt was a significant military engagement that took place on October 25, 1415, during the Hundred Years' War between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of France. It was fought near the town of Agincourt in northern France. The battle is famous for the English victory despite being heavily outnumbered by the French forces.
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It's fucking great. Yeah, it's. Uh. So we doing this little short. See, I'm gonna do like a baby shot, I'm not gonna do the whole thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did, I did fill you up there.
Speaker 1:Yes, I did I mean. I'm gonna. There's a lot of words in this. There's a lot of words here. It's.
Speaker 2:French is French.
Speaker 1:We all know how I do with.
Speaker 2:French stuff not very with that back at hood, no this is a block.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, cheers motherfucker, cheers motherfucker that is that Russian?
Speaker 2:I think so nice, they're not involved in this.
Speaker 1:Today's our first battle. Ian, that was a.
Speaker 2:Shot.
Speaker 1:speaking of taking shots, Uh-huh Lots of shots are fired at battles, oh, shots are fired at battles, but you know what the funny thing about this battle is no artillery, mmm, but there was a lot of shots of arrows. Yeah, yeah, no artillery though still counts still counts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, still counts counts less because French, but Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to drinking our way through history, where we cover the legendary people, places, spectacles and events that history has to offer, while enjoying a thick pour of whiskey. Yeah, I am Cooper and I am in. Today, we're diving headfirst into one of the bloodiest, sloppy, favorite and most legendary battles of the Middle Ages the battle of Agincourt. Agincourt, the battle of Agincourt, was a significant military engagement that took place on October 25th 1415 yes, during the hundred years war between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of France 100 years.
Speaker 1:It was a little bit longer, but you know they just wanted to round it out.
Speaker 2:We rounded it, it sounded nice. It's a nice title, yeah clickbait.
Speaker 1:No one wants to call it a hundred and thirteen and a half year war.
Speaker 2:It's history's version of clickbait.
Speaker 1:That's a good way to put it and it was fought near the town of Agincourt in northern France. This battle is famous for the English victory, despite being heavily outnumbered by the French forces.
Speaker 2:It reminds me of Thermopylae. The battle of Thermopylae with the.
Speaker 1:Spartans, the Spartans. That's a good point.
Speaker 2:It was a big differentiator. There was thousands of the English and tens of thousands of the, not tens of thousands. It was like blood of Persians 5000. No, not Thermopylae, I'm talking the battle of Agincourt. Oh, back, yeah, yeah, so it's like they were outnumbered by like 7000 or something like that. Yeah, it was more than that.
Speaker 1:The historian rate, the numbers range.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay drastically.
Speaker 1:The English army, led by King Henry the fifth of England, was composed of long bowmen and a smaller number of Entrantry and cavalry. The French army, led by Charles, the Albright Constable of France and various French nobles, was much larger and included a significant number of armored knights.
Speaker 2:I love that Lancelot was in that bitch.
Speaker 1:Lancelot.
Speaker 2:Wait what? Yeah the armored knight, oh.
Speaker 1:It's just, it was yeah.
Speaker 2:Would have been way better if you hadn't said wait what? But that's fine, no, we'll keep pacing.
Speaker 1:Thank you All right, good, good, good. Yeah, it's now. This whole battle is like a medieval mosh pit. Wait what?
Speaker 2:It doesn't hurt, doesn't that hurt when you do that sour?
Speaker 1:It's like a medieval mosh pit, but with knights, horses, arrows, mud and a whole fuckload of chaos. I do like mud. The battle of Agincourt has all the makings of an epic historic tale. So let's step into the muck and madness of that fateful day in 1415 and uncover the mayhem, the strategy, the sheer insanity of Agincourt.
Speaker 2:I like it no. I like it. Those ad libs were actual recordings from the meetings.
Speaker 1:They were having during this time, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Very good stuff. Very very good stuff. I love it. I love it. You know what else takes a lot of strategy? Strategy, ah, what pronouncing strategy. First of all, that's that's a tough one. I'm glad you hurtled it I did, I did hurtle it and I said it with confidence, and you know what else you can do with confidence.
Speaker 1:What can you do?
Speaker 2:you can hit that like button. Oh, you can hit that five star review. You could even give us a review.
Speaker 1:As long as it's a five star review, one if it's a four star review.
Speaker 2:We don't fucking want it and don't fucking do that.
Speaker 1:I don't even like you face like who leaves a four star?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Karen.
Speaker 2:Karen, karen, karen leaves a four star.
Speaker 1:Do you want to be like? There's no such thing as perfection.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like perfect, but they did everything right.
Speaker 1:It's like that's perfect they did it perfect anyway, the absolute worst. I am so excited to dive into this. This is like fucking. I've been just living in this.
Speaker 2:You've been talking about this for the last week, and it's I. You've made me excited by default, it's just so it's, it's just that one fucking.
Speaker 1:It's perfectly like medieval battles of like what shit happened and how it happened in just the insanity. It is the G spot.
Speaker 2:We're really hitting it right, you know, and it was really hard to find I got to say really hard to find the G spot, but we got there drinking our way through history. We did it first.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, yeah now.
Speaker 2:Now, before the battle of Agancourt kicked off, king Henry the fifth of England was in a bit of a pickle, you see. He had this grand idea that he should be the king of France.
Speaker 1:And well, here's why, and and ladies and gentlemen, this is a, this is a sum up. This is, this is the summary. All right, because there is so much shit that I could have included in here for context. Ian absolutely loves reading.
Speaker 2:I love the context, the context, especially when it's not even context.
Speaker 1:No, that's my favorite thing, it's I could have gone really deep in this rabbit hole. So this is gonna be a brush up on Getting us to this battle, so that we can understand why we're here and what's happening and why somebody got a sword plunge through your eyes and why King Henry the fifth?
Speaker 2:thought that he should be the king of France, yep.
Speaker 2:There we go because the hundred year war, which began in 1337 and lasted well beyond a century, was primarily fueled by competing claims to the French throne and territorial disputes Between the two powerful nations, that being England and France. Yes, at the heart of the conflict was the question of succession to the French crown. The English monarchy under King Edward the third Claimed a legitimate right to the French throne through Edward's mother, queen Isabella, who was the daughter of King Philip the fourth of France stick with us, people stick with us.
Speaker 2:We're almost through it, I know, I know this complex web of Dynastic claims and counterclaims became the primary source of tension between the English and French monarchies.
Speaker 1:The hundred years war can be divided into several distinct phases, with the battle of Agancourt Taking place during the later stage of the war. Yes, the war had seen various Significant battles and campaigns, with both sides experiencing victories and defeats. The English, under the leadership of notable figures like King Edward the third and his son Edward the black prince real original.
Speaker 2:I wonder if he was a white guy. He was, he just had black armor. I love that talk about cultural appropriation, man.
Speaker 1:They had previously achieved remarkable successes. However, by the time of the battle of Agancourt, the English had lost many of their previous territorial gains in France. The French, under the guidance and charismatic leaders like Joan of Arc, had rallied their forces and were determined to push the English Out of French territory.
Speaker 2:Did we already do our Joan of Arc episode? No, we have not.
Speaker 1:We will eventually get there because it is a fascinating fucking story. It is absolutely batshit crazy and she is. She is a phrenic to the max, but everybody's like. She sees God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, obviously anybody who sees God profit. But uh, but yeah, I didn't. I didn't put two and two together. That Joan of Arc was kind of around this. I forgot that she was involved in the Hundred Years War kind of era and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:She was very interesting, yeah she was a, she was like an icon during that. She was the. She was the mockingjay Of the Hundred Years.
Speaker 2:War, she was the.
Speaker 1:Jennifer Lawrence. Yes, now the funny thing about a real quick tidbit about Joan of Arc. She was best friends who really helped her out throughout her battles that she fought in with Zelda Ray. Zelda Ray was a fucking French serial killer. Oh, that's so fucking sick. Yeah, he was a French nobleman. Who's fucking loaded and he was a fucking ridiculous Serial killer.
Speaker 2:Where is our Zelda Ray episode?
Speaker 1:We need it there's. There's true kind broadcasts that I've already covered that we might dive in. We'll touch on it when we cover Joan of Arc.
Speaker 2:I'd love to touch on it Just a little bit, just tease me. Just a tip, just a tip.
Speaker 1:The bat now. The battle of Agencourt was part of King Henry the fifth's campaign to assert his claim to the French throne. We're all about assertion, assertion and dominance. Now. Henry, who became King of England in 1413, sought to exploit the divisions within the French nobility and pressed his claim to the French crown. The Campaign led to a series of military engagements in northern France, culminating in the battle of Agencourt. Whoo, as we said at the top of the episode, the English army the underdog at Agencourt was in an extremely challenging situation. They were not only far from home base, but we're also heavily outnumbered by the French forces, which is why this is one of the most bad avil. One of the most bad avil.
Speaker 2:Let's try to combine these words here. That's a good slur for it, though I like that. Yeah, the bad avil the most bad at.
Speaker 1:We'll just keep it. Yeah, bad avil, underdog stories around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, the most badass medieval? No, absolutely. So I guess we should talk about the build up to this specific battle of Agencourt right helps.
Speaker 1:It does some Additional context.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, there's one thing we're good at.
Speaker 1:It's context build up.
Speaker 2:Lots of build up Not so good on the finish, but build up Excel. Now Henry the fifth decided to invade France because negotiations with them weren't necessarily working out. He thought he should be the king of France because his great-grandfather, edward the third of England, had some sort of claim to the French throne. However, the English were willing to give up this claim if the French would acknowledge that England should have some parts of France. Very interesting, yeah, it's. This is the gist.
Speaker 2:I love high-level overview of what the term imagine I'm related to Obama, right, and I'm like dude, I'm his grandkid, like I should probably be president. That's kind of what this fucking site it's like.
Speaker 1:I'm qualified because my blood? Well, according to the bushes there's that. That's how it works. That's true. That is how it works.
Speaker 2:I like that. You picked the one father-son pair from Great that's great.
Speaker 2:So in 1414, henry held a meeting with the great council to talk about going to war with France. But they told him to be more reasonable and to keep negotiating. So Henry said that he would give up his claim to be king of France if the French would pay back a lot of money from a long time ago and let England have some French lands. He also wanted to marry Catherine. There's always a Catherine who wanted he was the daughter of the French king. Right, yeah, yeah. And he also wanted to get a little bit of mula as part of the deal.
Speaker 1:I can miss, it was a million crowns, to be exact.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it's like that doctor evil segment, you know he's like I want one million Dollars, everybody's laughing dollars yeah so the French came back with their own offer, as business practice entails, which they thought was pretty good. They said Henry could marry Catherine and they'd give him some money, but not as much as he wanted, which they said like what? 600,000 crowns, yeah, instead of 2 million, yeah, that's a big difference. They also said he could have a bigger piece of aquatain, which was part of France.
Speaker 1:So honestly, it's a pretty good deal. They're like here will also give you a larger part than what you're asking for. We'll still give you some money, but not as much as you're asking not nearly, is that not even half?
Speaker 2:I like that. It's not even half, not even half. It's like a spit in the face.
Speaker 1:Which Understandable well, you know what, thinking of it when I was looking through, they had a lot of shit that they had to pay, yeah, and they had a lot of the first lot yeah, yeah there's a lot of shit that they were still working on and it's like 2 million. Oh, we can't quite do it, but like we'll go 600.
Speaker 2:It's like paying the middleman 2 million dollars. That's. I completely understand why they were like yeah, you definitely don't deserve that much fucking money, and plus you've been at war with us for over 70 years, what? We're just gonna bow down and give you 2 million buck over this exact fucking thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah over the French crown. Mm-hmm, that's basically the whole context of the Hundred Years War.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the best part in December of 1414 the English Parliament agreed to give Henry extra money to start the war machine, because by 1415 the negotiations were going literally nowhere. The English were mad because they thought the French were making fun of them, and Henry they probably were. Yeah, they were, it's like.
Speaker 2:So on April 19th of 1415, henry asked the great council again if they would let him go to war with France, and this time they said yes, because that's all he won. He was like I just want to, I just want to fucking put my dick in there.
Speaker 1:But with war, that's, and they sounded just like that.
Speaker 2:Well, sorry, let me say it again I just want no, hold on, I just want to put my dick in there, but for war.
Speaker 1:It would have been, it would have been. Put my dick in there, ours, oh yeah, my day in the horse for war. I think we just went Scottish, no northern English, but yeah.
Speaker 2:No, no, I respect it, so in.
Speaker 1:August 1415, henry and his army landed in northern France, in Normandy, on a large fleet. We love large fleets. They had about 12,000 soldiers and up to 20,000 horses with them and they surrounded the town of Haflour, which was right off the coast of where they landed and would serve them strategically. They had 20,000 fucking horses on a boat. They had like what? Not on a boat, it wasn't on the. They had many boats, they had like 1500 right, right, sorry.
Speaker 2:When I say a boat, they had horses on boats and that went well. That's crazy.
Speaker 1:Oh, they always did yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Horses got to America, they're all on a boat when? Are horses from Europe, is it not Asia? I thought they were from Asia. I mean probably, but I mean, there's also European horses and stuff like Germany and Spain Spanish horses.
Speaker 2:They're smaller and less cool.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, because I mean the Asian ones had to carry the Mongols, and Mongols were not small people. No, they were hefty motherfuckers so Now the siege ended up taking longer than they had originally planned. In half of the soldiers they fucking died of dysentery.
Speaker 2:They're just their brains out.
Speaker 1:That's so sad. Dysentery was a major fucking problem back in the day, and that's like such a bad fucking way to go oh it hurts oh. It's not fun? No, not out of experience, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like we've had dysentery, yeah, many times. We're speaking from experience.
Speaker 1:Now, finally, after five weeks of bombarding the city and attempting to tunnel under the walls, the town gave up on September 22nd, and the English would stay there until October 8th, where then they would head north. Now it was getting close to winter and many of their remaining soldiers were still sick from dysentery, and people were still dying off. Now, instead of going directly back to England, henry decided to lead most of his army, which was around 6,000 people, through Normandy to Calais, an important English base in northern France. Now he could have just fucking gotten on a boat and sailed around, because it was another coastal town.
Speaker 1:He was like I'm gonna march my men through the land.
Speaker 2:My shitty stinky men that are shitting themselves and dying.
Speaker 1:Because he wanted to basically assert the dominance of like I have the right to be here.
Speaker 2:I'm just imagining him standing there with a big old dick, but there's also superfluous amounts of diarrhea just flowing out of him, like that's my personification of this moment.
Speaker 1:That's why the French caught them so much because they could just smell them everywhere.
Speaker 2:They're like that's not a croissant.
Speaker 1:So he did this basically to show the right that he had the right to rule there and he also to challenge the dolphin who was this he was like a monarch of the French territory and he didn't respond to Henry's call for a battle at Ha Fleur Now because Henry was like we can end this right. Fucking now you and I go to battle one on one. And the thing about Henry the Fifth was he was a fucking badass like hand to hand combat man. He was a royally badass.
Speaker 1:That's kind of sick and the dolphin was fucking fat and like drank and ate his life away. And was like I'm not fucking like he's the Robert Baratheon of this. He is the Robert Baratheon of this story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was like I will not fight.
Speaker 1:Where's my next role? So now that while they were back in besieging Ha Fleur, the first city that they came to, the French were raising their own army around the city ruin, which is kind of a little bit outskirts away from them. Now, it wasn't exactly a feudal army, but more like a paid one, similar to how English did it. So they would pay these nobles to gather the peasants and round them up and then fucking go fight. And do that because the nobles wanted to fight for honor, quote, unquote, and then also to kidnap people, or to like hold them hostage, prisoners of war, so that they could sell them back for ransom, and that's how they would make a lot of money.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of money in warfare.
Speaker 2:Well, yes, yes, and we've known that warfare boosts any country's economy.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:What I find more interesting real quick, small side note is the fact that they wanted to challenge the dolphin. But like, how can you challenge a dolphin? You know what I mean? Their bottle nose. They're swimming through the ocean.
Speaker 1:I hate you, I hate you.
Speaker 2:so much I've been waiting to drop that. It's a dolphin. A dolphin, no L. Oh, dolphin, you fucking cut Dolphin. Got it, no, got it.
Speaker 1:Now, the French were hoping to get about 9,000 troops from this paid army that was on the outskirts from all these nobles yeah, but they were not ready to help with the besieging of Huffer.
Speaker 2:No because they would be spreading themselves like super thin.
Speaker 1:Well, they would just be concentrated all right there. And yeah, if they would have had these additional 9,000 men, they would have definitely beat Henry V. Yeah, yeah, because what we're gonna get into why Henry V was fucking lucky on this battle.
Speaker 2:Those 9,000 troops, I'm assuming, were doing something else at the time.
Speaker 1:They were just being gathered, like it takes time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially back then there wasn't a phone or a computer. No, they're like sending letters and messengers, and they had to go collect the peasants.
Speaker 1:They're like fuck your corn, come over here, You're gonna fight for me.
Speaker 2:The farmers like ah sorry, daughters and wife, I have to leave the farm to go fight war. I'll be back in seven years. So once Henry V and his army headed north, the French moved to stop them along the river Sommet. Now, at first, the French were successful in blocking Henry's path, which made him change course and move south away from Calais in search of a suitable crossing point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's trying to cross the river. Okay, okay, okay, that makes sense Now. Eventually, the English managed to cross the Sommet to the south of Péran if I'm not mistaken and continued their march northward.
Speaker 2:Now with no river in their way to defend, the French were cautious about forcing a battle. They kept a close watch on Henry's army and sent out a call to local nobles asking them to join their forces. On October 24th of 1415, scouts from the English army returned to King Henry once the army was about 30 miles away from Calais and told Henry that the French had managed to cut them off and block their path. When Henry asked the scouts how many French were blocking their path, they replied they were not enough to kill.
Speaker 1:No, there are enough to kill.
Speaker 2:Oh sorry, there are enough to kill, enough to capture and enough to run away. So basically, there's a fucking lot of them.
Speaker 1:That's pretty fire. That's a pretty fire response. It's a good response. Back to a king there's enough to kill, there's enough to capture and there's enough to run away.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that yeah.
Speaker 1:And despite this obstacle, the English continued their march. In the distance, they saw the imposing sight of the French knights and soldiers spread across the valley from the east. Realizing they couldn't move forward and that battle was imminent, king Henry ordered his army to set up camp and prepare for the upcoming fight. That evening, a solemn mood settled over the English camp. A heavy rain began to fall. Henry and his men remained sober and quiet, wanting them to remain mentally sharp for the next day. Meanwhile, a couple miles up the road, the French forces celebrated in their sprawling camp with numerous fires, laughter and lively music. The French obviously felt very confident about their victory in this upcoming battle. They were like fuck you. No, that would have been.
Speaker 2:That was more Irish, that was. Ingyrish, ingyrish, ingyrish Croson not he, I don't know. Croson Ha ha, ha, ha, ha ha ha ha, the only way I can get into character. Everybody's celebrating on the French side and all they're doing is just yelling Croson, croson, croson. That is so racist. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:It's not racist. They're the same race. They're a different region.
Speaker 2:Cultural appropriation my bad.
Speaker 1:Ha, ha ha ha Fuck the French back in the day. Back in the day now they're fine Back in the day. Fuck the French. I don't know they were bad motherfucker, because I wouldn't have told that to them through their face back then.
Speaker 2:No, neither of us would have.
Speaker 1:During this night, Henry walked throughout the camp of his army, resolving worry and spreading words of encouragement, just going up to campfire to campfire, saying, hey, we're gonna fucking kill these bastards tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Yo, honestly, they're eating way too many croissants.
Speaker 1:You see how drunk they're getting right now. They're gonna be sloppy, they're gonna be tired, it's raining, it's on our side, yeah yeah, no, that, honestly.
Speaker 2:that says a lot about Henry, though, because, think about it, he understood Marau was down. Oh yeah, he's hearing all this celebration from the other half and he's looking around and he's like, I ordered you guys to say somber and quiet, which is kind of a weird thing. I don't know why he did that.
Speaker 1:Well, because the tradition is like everybody's gonna have a drink and get drunk the night before they go to battle because they are probably gonna die the next day.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's like this is their last su-ra. We're going out with our brothers.
Speaker 2:We're fucking going back to the earth of which we came from you know, dude, I just got chills like thinking about actually being in those shoes of either side of the battle.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Either being the French that are celebrating and having this good time. There is that undertone of fuck dude, I might die tomorrow. And then, on the English side, you've been told to remain sober and quiet and it's like now. I have nothing to do but fucking focus on the fact that I might die tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you're soberly thinking of it instead. Of like drunkenly being able to forget, yeah, and.
Speaker 2:Henry walked through and he like actually resolved that worry and kind of like talked to his. What a good manager. I gotta say what a good boss.
Speaker 1:Now there's stories of that he was possibly going through like in a cloak or whatever, just in like soldiers uniform oh, kind of like an anonymous, like motherfucker. Yeah, just to get the check the morale of everybody. And they're like, yeah, it sucks that we can't fucking drink, but we still love.
Speaker 2:Henry, that's kind of sick. Yeah, that's super kind of sick Dude. I've. He's gained so many points from just that.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. And he's like this is he's still in his 20s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm thinking about me at my age, 26 years old, fucking doing that. No, I wouldn't even have the. I would be shitting myself in my tent.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, 100%, that's fucking lutely.
Speaker 2:So the following day, neither side wanted to attack first. They both wanted to play the defensive in order to have a strong chance of winning. The French also kind of wanted to delay the battle for as long as possible in order to allow for more reinforcements to arrive. However, henry ordered his army to advance and initiate a battle, even though he would have preferred to avoid it or fight defensively. The English kind of faced a tough situation. They were low on food. They had marched a long way in a short time and were dealing with diseases like dysentery and were greatly outnumbered by well-equipped French soldiers. They all had a croissant Croissant Just ready and waiting. Now the French army blocked Henry's path to the safety of Calais, and delaying the battle would only make his exhausted army weaker and allow more French reinforcements to arrive. So he was just like fuck it, let's just send it. Yeah, basically Best thing he could have done.
Speaker 1:I think it was so it was. We're about to talk about how he said fuck it, let's send it, because his maneuvering and, honestly, if it didn't rain this night before this battle would have turned out completely different but it fucks the French and the French's overconfidence also fucks them.
Speaker 2:There's a I can't remember the movie, but there is a movie where this kind of thing happens, where it's two medieval armies and then it rains the night before and it like gives this army that had very much so not the advantage it allowed them to win. I can't remember what the movie is. You showed me this movie.
Speaker 1:Are you thinking of the one that Tim Shemalama, maybe Shemalat Possibly? That sounds right. I was actually about to look it up earlier. I don't know. I don't think this is the same story because you I don't think it's related.
Speaker 2:I just think it's the same situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Where it's like that rain comes in, because that does make a fucking difference, and especially if you kind of have a little bit of the high ground or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I couldn't find if they had any.
Speaker 2:I don't think there was any high advantage, like high advantage, high advantage, oh, okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 1:It's just we'll go into why.
Speaker 2:I mean you gotta think about it, Waiting through the muck in an entire suit of armor.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, we're gonna talk about it, because those bitches were heavy.
Speaker 2:Let's get into it.
Speaker 1:So in the early hours of the 25th, the English soldiers knelt down and kissed the ground as a symbol that they might be returning to the earth before the day was over. Fuck, they would kiss it and they'd chew on it. They'd pick up a piece of dirt and chew on it. Yeah, give it a little nibble. Yeah, a little bit of a blessing. Henry organizes army consisting of around 1500 minute arms and 5,000 long bowmen along a stretch of the battlefield. His forces were divided into three groups the right wing, led by Edward, duke of York, the center, commanded by the king himself, and the left wing under the seasoned Baron Thomas Camus.
Speaker 2:He just sounds like somebody I wouldn't fuck with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, not at all the archer. He never smiles, Never smiles.
Speaker 2:I like how that's something, because that's something that peaked out at you during your research.
Speaker 1:That's not written anywhere, You're just like and this motherfucker never smiles. He just yeah, he's just that fucking broad shoulder.
Speaker 2:He's like it's time for war.
Speaker 1:He just communicates and grunts, yeah yeah, no, I love that.
Speaker 2:When he wants the left flank to attack, he's like.
Speaker 1:When he wants something to draw back, he's like yeah, no, the archers were under the order of Sir Thomas Arpinham and experienced fucking veteran. He was also a bad motherfucker because the archers, these long bowmen, they did seriously slaughtering damage.
Speaker 2:Well, dude, like back then, if the long bowmen have good accuracy.
Speaker 1:It's not even about the accuracy, it's the numbers.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:So a long bowman could knock between 10 to 20 fucking arrows in a minute, yeah, and when you have 5,000 of these and you're fucking knocking, that's like shooting off a minigun.
Speaker 1:It's like shooting off 10 miniguns against an army of people that have those fucking revolutionary war rifles Mm-hmm yeah, now, the English army likely followed its typical battle formation with long bowmen positioned on both flanks and minute arms and knights in the center. Some archers may have also been placed in the middle of the line. They were actually placed in the middle of the line. I've watched a documentary that's like a reenactment of the little blocks showing the battle.
Speaker 1:I mean it's tough to know, but it is hard to know. There were scribes and I'll mention their names here in a little bit that talk about what the recounting of the battle was. Yeah, now the minute, arms wearing plate and mail armor stood shoulder to shoulder in four rows. It's a big target. To deter cavalry charges, the English and Welsh archers on the flanks planted wood stakes at an angle in the ground, forcing the enemy cavalry to divert their path. So just kind of fucking them up and sending them all into crashing.
Speaker 2:It's interesting to me that they like stayed with the same battle for me. I understand that I don't know much about war tactics or anything like that, but it's always interesting to me when people like set are set in their ways and they kind of enter every battle in the same formation. It's like wow, you can literally OK, you're giving the guy who's facing you a blueprint of how to fuck you up.
Speaker 1:Well, it's, and that's the thing like. So Napoleon started kind of evolving strategy. Yeah, war as well, but this is more of like war was a formality. Yes, and so you knew that certain people were going to get slaughtered. You knew that you were going to send in the people. Read after them. They everybody had the same uniform.
Speaker 2:Well, the royalty knew this stuff, or the commanders, but the actual inventory didn't have it in. Take into this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm sure, I'm sure they did, because people talk, people do survive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, but anyways very interesting stuff. The whole history of war is just fascinating as well, like the shifting and literally I've gotten killed so many times just talking about it, just imagining be there Like it sounds awful.
Speaker 1:So Henry, at this point, delivered an inspiring speech, stressing the righteousness of their cause and reminding his troops of the great victories that English kings had achieved over the French in the past. Yes, according to some accounts, he even mentioned rumors that the French had threatened to cut off two fingers from the right hand of every archer so they couldn't draw their longbows ever again. Whether this claim was true remains a matter of debate to this day, but it was clear that any soldier unable to be ransom faced a grim fucking fate in this battle.
Speaker 2:We brought this up in a previous episode and I can't remember which one. It was a tidbit of information that I had where they thought that the French were cutting the fingers and it was like a factual thing that I had found where they actually were fucking doing that. Yeah, so I will. I would venture to say now don't quote me on this, but I would venture to say that that is actually a very true thing, because they were cutting off the fingers of the archers specifically so that they couldn't draw bows.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very true. Um yeah, in what they, if this, if this is true, obviously, like within this battle take it with a grain of salt. They would show them their first two fingers, as it's like taunting of like we still have our fingers. We're gonna fuck you up.
Speaker 2:They're giving them the peace sign, but it's not about peace Now.
Speaker 1:The French finally dragged themselves out of bed and saw the English army ready for battle. They lined themselves up, but we're still waiting for more troops to join their ranks now, because what? This is what happened. So the morning that it came, henry got his troops up before the sun came up and had them lined up, positioned the the fucking. Everything was set up ready for fucking battle. And then the French get up and they're like oh fuck, they're ready.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because at the end of the day, couldn't he have just like sent them while the French weren't ready?
Speaker 1:but it was more of a formal yeah it's not formal.
Speaker 2:And then we started doing guerrilla warfare, yeah exactly which fucked all that up. So the French army had significant numbers right. So 10,000 minute arms, along with approximately 4,000 to 5,000 other foot soldiers, including, like archers, crossbowmen and shield bearers. Each minute arms likely had an armed servant known as a gross ballet or a valet, potentially adding another, I don't know. 10,000 men, yeah, although some historians don't really include them when counting combatants and the reason they don't they don't come at well, they kind of can.
Speaker 1:They're just there, yeah, like every night in Noble person and all these fucking squire almost. Yeah, exactly so like Game of Thrones. What's her face? The big night lady.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I know exactly who you're talking about and his and his dude her dude that like hung around because they'll eventually become a knight. Yes, he's the squire, she's the knight. It's kind of a formality. Exactly, they're called the gross ballet but it's like a squire.
Speaker 1:Most people are familiar with that and nights were fucking expensive back in the day too.
Speaker 2:You think about how fucking expensive that suit of armor was back then?
Speaker 1:Exactly Jesus Christ. These fucking were rich.
Speaker 2:And they had thousands of them. It's just wild. So the French army was organized into two primary groups right, a vanguard positioned at the front, and a main battle group followed, following like closely behind. These groups mainly consisted of men at arms fighting on foot, and were flanked by similar troops on each wing. Additionally, there was an elite cavalry unit whose main role was to disrupt the formation of the English archers, clearing the war, clearing the way for the infantry to advance. Another smaller mounted force was tasked with attacking the rear of the English army, including their baggage and support staff.
Speaker 1:So baggage being like the English camp and all of their yeah, all the wives and all the things that they just list. No, no, no. They don't have wives and children, Just like their goods, their valuables that they plundered.
Speaker 2:I thought that that was kind of what they left back at camp was usually like the travelers they're not taking women and children. It's this is the army's campaign into France.
Speaker 1:The women and kids are left home, the baggage and support staff that's like.
Speaker 2:I guess I'd be thinking more of, like, the cooking staff, the cooking staff that they build the tents, they take them down, they carry them along.
Speaker 1:They're not fucking soldiers, they're not. Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah that makes sense.
Speaker 2:So many nobles insisted on taking their place in the front lines which is interesting when they believe they could earn more glory and valuable ransoms. What a gamble.
Speaker 1:Well, is what that means is like, if I go up and I kill 12 men and then everybody else kills 12 men, and then we leave their knights still alive, who are valuable nobles, I can ransom them back off to England for 10,000 pounds. Yeah, so it can change Each kind of thing. So this is what I'm talking about. It's war is an economy. That's interesting.
Speaker 2:Because to me I feel like the nobles would just hang back.
Speaker 1:Oh no they're gung-ho about this because this is how they keep their lands and it's honor and it's glory, and it's their household name and, like the house of Lannister, will come and kill you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so like. As a result of this, most of the men and arms were concentrated in the front lines, leaving the other troops with no room and thus positioned behind. Originally intended to be with the infantry wings, the archers and crossbowmen were now deemed unnecessary and placed behind them instead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because they? Because the noblemen were like pushing front, because France made the fuck up decision of recruiting all of these noblemen, yeah, and the noblemen were like, well, I want my place.
Speaker 2:What a fucking metaphor for saying that politics don't fucking matter. Yeah, that's so crazy, it's so.
Speaker 1:it just there was no leadership because there's too many egotistical fucking nobles.
Speaker 2:Too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
Speaker 1:Exactly? Is the saying yes, is that timely, appropriate?
Speaker 2:I was just thinking the same thing and we're going to leave it in the podcast because it was made out of pure ignorance, but that saying is very valuable.
Speaker 1:Here it's like there's too many leaders and not enough people following the lead, yeah, yeah. Now, due to space constraints, the French created a third battle group called the rear guard, consisting of mounted troops, primarily the valets riding the horses belonging to the foot soldiers in front.
Speaker 2:I like to say put the, the, the mounted troops in the rear guard. A lot of innurendos going on, if you know what I mean. Sorry, innuendos, yeah. Yeah, I see what you say, yeah.
Speaker 1:Now the vanguard and main battle of the French army consisted of approximately 4800 and 3000 minute arms respectively. These formed dense, tightly packed formations with around 16 ranks, each positioned at a distance of about a bow shot from one another. So if you can about shot bow shot, so I would say like 150 yards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a long bow can reach probably about 150. Yeah, 100 to 150 yards according to Skyrim. So there we go, yeah.
Speaker 1:According to Skyrim. That's where we're getting our facts. They, they, they did their research. They did.
Speaker 1:So I don't have to. Each wing of the French army had 600 dismounted men and arms. Now, men and arms are just like soldiers, right, they're just the soldiers. Infantry, yeah, to scatter the enemy archers, a cavalry unit of 800 to 1200 elite men and arms were distributed evenly on both sides of the vanguard, standing slightly ahead like horns. Yeah, all guys on horses, yep. Approximately 200 mounted men and arms were assigned to attack the English rear because they wanted to encircle them and then slaughter them. They all about that booty, though the French seemed to lack a clear plan for this, for the rest of their forces and the rear guard without a clear leader and appeared to be a place for surplus troops. They were just like I don't know, just go fucking do something. You go do something. There was no organization.
Speaker 2:That's the group I'd want to be a part of the reason why they didn't have any organization.
Speaker 1:The king of France at the time, he was going fucking mad. He was like losing his shit.
Speaker 2:He was not fit to actually rule, so he just didn't have a plan in place. Yeah, so the guy, I can't remember his name. There was not a clear chain of command, exactly so the guy that I set up at the top of the episode.
Speaker 1:I can't remember his name now. He fucking he was the one that was trying to run this, but then too many nobles came in that was like almost too close of equal power and rank to him or like I don't even fucking need to listen to you, I'm not going to get in trouble if I don't listen to you. So it just caused all this like chaos and like the Frenchman were like walking their horses around, like keeping them warm and like just taking strolls and eating extra breakfast and all this shit.
Speaker 1:So they were just not focused on this battle that was about to happen.
Speaker 2:So the battleground played a crucial role in determining the battle's outcome Right. It was a significant factor that heavily favored the English forces. The field was recently plowed and surrounded by dense woods, making it narrow, and mired in thick mud from the rain the night before. That's where that rain comes into play. These conditions put the French Knights at a serious disadvantage.
Speaker 1:Think about the fucking armor dude, you're, you're sinking. You're in quicksand. At that point, on the morning of October 25th, king Henry and his men lined up across the back end of the battlefield, trying to show that he and his men were ready for battle, and actually, more of looking like they were excited for the battle to come, they were taunting them. They were screaming out at the Frenchman, calling them all sorts of names, telling them that they're mother French.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they'd been up for three hours. At this point they're wide awake.
Speaker 1:Now facing that formidable French army three times their size, Henry and his English forces thought of a very sneaky advantage that the French never anticipated. See, the English knew that the muddy and waterlogged battlefield would impede the mobility of the French heavy cavalry in the Knights. So the English army's core strength lay in its longbow archers, so that Henry had several hundred of them sneak through the trees on the outside of the battlefield to get into firing distance of the French Knights in the cavalry and wait for his fucking signal. Fucking smart yeah.
Speaker 1:Fucking smart they had no idea that this was coming. They had no idea these guys were there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So for the French, the Duke of Brabant, Brabant, Andro and Brittany were on their way, with additional soldiers right. So, like the French, they were waiting for these reinforcements. This is where they were coming from. The French believed that thousands more would join them if they held off on the fighting. Their strategy was to block Henry's retreat and patiently wait, possibly even thinking that the English might flee, upon realizing that they would be facing many French nobles right.
Speaker 1:The nobles are so noble.
Speaker 2:Yeah, noble is the word I would think of when I'm thinking of a noble. For the first three hours after sunrise there was no combat. It was a common belief in military texts of the time that in face-to-face encounters, those who stayed put and held their ground often had the advantage. The French were willing to wait and they were confident that reinforcements would arrive eventually. They also had plenty of provisions to hold them over. Henry's army, on the other hand, was tired from hunger, illness and their retreat. Henry's plan was to change his army from a fleeing one to a defensive force. To do this, he had to abandon his initial position, move forward and reset the long, sharpened wooden stakes facing the enemy. After moving his troops up a bit on the battlefield, henry gave the signal to his longbow archers and the battle began. The English longbowmen began to volley their arrows from the trees, hitting and killing many of the noble knights, men in arms and their horses.
Speaker 1:The French were caught completely off guard and began to panic, with no chain of command and a panic ensuing that's fucking bad news bears Cause you're looking at men that are hundreds of yards downfield from you and all of a sudden you're getting volleyed with thousands of arrows.
Speaker 2:Those who were surviving that initial impact are literally just like fuck.
Speaker 1:Somebody tell me what to do. Somebody tell me what to do and no one would tell them what to do In. The French cavalry, although disorganized and not at full strength, attempted a charge against the longbowmen.
Speaker 2:They just like we're like hey, frank, you ready to go? Frank's like fuck, yeah, I'm ready to go. Let's fucking go. Let's just fucking hit him, bro. And it's like seven of them Just charge Where's everybody else I don't know. Nobleman Frank over there wanted to fucking get his glory on.
Speaker 1:Get his glory and get a couple fucking bucks. Now. This move proved fucking disastrous. The front line of the French army moved forward to the charge in the narrow confines of the muddy, rain-soaked plowed land. The charge quickly reduced to a stumbling walk, hindering the floundering men and horses shot down by the archers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause they're getting knocked down. Right, the ones that are getting knocked down, just lay on the ground and then everybody's fucking tripping over them.
Speaker 1:Yeah and horses are getting fucking hit and they're going crazy. It's chaos. It's so chaos. The horses couldn't outflank the longbowmen due to surrounding woods, and they couldn't charge through the rows of sharp stakes that shielded the archers. The primary impact of the longbows at this moment was causing injuries to the horses. Since the horses were armored only on their heads, many of them became difficult to control when struck in the back or the side, so an arrow would hit and strike into the horse's side or the back, and the horse would lose his shit and just fucking start stamping it away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I get it's cheaper to just do the helmets, but like did you not think ahead a little?
Speaker 1:bit. It's very difficult to armor a horse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean they have horse armor, though there is a. There is blueprints for the shit.
Speaker 1:Yes, Now the mounted charge and the subsequent retreat, added to the already muddy and challenging terrain between the French and English forces. This chaos led to panic among the wounded and frightened horses which galloped through the advancing infantry, scattering and trampling them as they desperately fled from the battlefield away from the English. I laugh, but that's horrifying, oh my God.
Speaker 1:I'm just thinking of this chaos, like fucking horses are dragging knights on the side of them like by the boot and they're dead with an arrow stuck in their eye. And the horse is fleeing with arrows stuck in it and just dying and running through people that are just like trying to kill the horse because they're killing people. Yeah, like it had to have been nightmarish 110,000% fucking scary.
Speaker 2:So the French cavalry got cut to pieces by all these fucking arrows. Injured horses were running around widely, which just added to the chaos when the so when the heavily armed French knights tried to walk through the muddy ground, they were shot and slaughtered at point blank range, falling dead on top of the bodies of other French knights. It was just like this wall of armor. Essentially it's like another. It's like another fucking rampart, another battle meant to overcome for the French.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it's another. It's another defense for the fucking English. Now. The sturdy plate armor, worn by the Frenchman at arms, allowed them to advance about 500 yards towards the English lines, despite being subjected to what the French monk of Saint Denis, michael Pintoin, vividly described as a terrifying hail of arrow shot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's putting it fucking lightly too. I mean just it's, it's constant when you say advance, it's like, yeah, 10% of those motherfuckers made it past to this point. It is.
Speaker 1:And think of just being. You're trying to advance towards the army down there. You're getting bombarded by arrows on the side and then, the closer you get, the more long bow arrows are starting to fucking shower you, because they're aiming at the ones in the front, they're not aiming at the ones in the back.
Speaker 1:It is so nuts. So complete plate armor was seen as highly protective, to the point that shields were typically not used. However, it has even been suggested that the leading elements of the French forces wielded axe and shields. Ok, yeah, so they did have some things to try and protect them, but this was imagined.
Speaker 2:How tiring this is I mean, yeah, I was going to say I look at it like more of a stamina thing.
Speaker 2:Like if you're wearing an entire suit of armor. That's enough, you know. And if you can't protect yourself with your fucking forearm covered in plate armor, then you don't deserve to live. You know, like it's kind of how they had to look at it because arming them with that suit of armor was super expensive. At arming all of them with axes, swords, shields, that had been a plethora of other money. So some of them had these axes and shields, but a lot of them just kind of had the armor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and a sword or whatever. So we'll talk about, like, the armor right here actually.
Speaker 2:So historians today kind of have varying opinions on how effective the long bows were against the plate armor of that era. Right so modern tests and historical accounts indicate that arrows couldn't penetrate high quality steel armor which had become accessible to knights and men at arms by the mid 14th century. They could potentially pierce the lower quality wrought iron armor. Some suggest that the long bow could penetrate a wrought iron breastplate at close range and even penetrate the thinner armor on the limbs at a distance of 220 yards, which is a long fucking way Skyrim was wrong.
Speaker 2:Now it's generally agreed that a knight in top quality steel armor would be impervious to arrow striking the breastplate or the top of the helmet, but vulnerable to shots hitting the limbs, particularly at close range. It's interesting, though, because it's like there's a lot of seams in that armor.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like, when I say seams, I mean joints specifically like the uh, that's what they're saying. It's like it'll enter those kinds of areas and it's like if you're getting shot at by thousands of arrows the chances are going way up way up, that you're going to get hit somewhere in a depot, a debilitating way, not a life threatening way maybe. But maybe the eyes True, the eyes.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:But like the, the, if you get hit in the, in the, in the niche of the elbow or the back of the knee or something like that, you're not going to die right away, but you are going to trample and then you're going to get trampled by your men. And then you're going to die. Yeah, you know it's. It's like a slow, painful fucking death instead.
Speaker 1:Fucking bull, oh God.
Speaker 2:It just says like your armor slowly bending in and suffocating you because of the weight of other armor on top of you and the mud. It's like being inside of a of a fucking can, inside of a can crusher, but like slow motion.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about that here in a little bit more. To shield. To shield themselves as much as possible from the arrows, the French had to lower their visors and tilt their helmets forward to prevent arrow strikes to the face, since the eye and air holes in their helmet were some of the weakest points in the arm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd be looking down too. Oh, yeah, I'd be looking down too. I'd be looking down until I could see their feet.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's fucking loop. Yeah Now, this head down posture restricted their breathing and vision. After that they had to march. After that they had to march a few hundred yards through the muck with a mass of Frenchmen, so just like a bunch of fucking dudes trying to get there first.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like you're at the front of a fucking concert crowd against the rail. It's a fucking yeah, yeah, you're getting crushed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're picking each other out of the way and into the mud, while being weighed down by armor that often exceeded 50 to 60 pounds, picking up wet and sticky clay on their boots along the way, just like every step is getting heavier and heavier and furthermore, furthermore, they had to maneuver around or step over the fallen men in front of them, just making it that much fucking harder. Oh my god, yeah Like this is just in fucking insanity and you can't turn around because everybody's still going forward. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You can't return around.
Speaker 1:If you stop, you just fucking so you're just getting shoved to your death. Yeah, one way if you stop, you're getting pushed over and trampled and killed, and if you keep going, you're going to get killed by the yeah, yeah, and when you say 50 to 60 pounds, like that's putting it lightly, because the average was 50 to 60 pounds.
Speaker 2:But there are records and I know this just from my own knowledge that there are records of these knights, armors weighing up Upwards of 150 fucking pounds. It's just nice.
Speaker 1:These are obviously the bigger guys, the big guys that are doing that. But it's mountain guys from the game of thrones. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:But it's like it's still even even on the low end of that a hundred pounds. Think about walking through this shit in a hundred pound armor, like, yes, it's protecting you, but it's also debilitating you in such a crazy way yeah.
Speaker 1:So, the it's just. It's just fucking nuts. It is and you're really like, really put it into perspective.
Speaker 2:We're only like 200 years out and this shit, and now I have today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now we know drones and fucking all this shit in the sky and 200 years ago, that's what we were doing, more than 200 years ago.
Speaker 2:Hundred fifty hundred years ago, yeah war is gonna be fought by robots by by 2050, and that's just fact. The Frenchman at arms who survived reached the front of the English line, pushing it back, while the long bowman on the flanks continued To shoot at close range. Now, these long bowmen I'm assuming are the French long bowmen that you're talking about here, or are you talking about no? No, no, these are the English one. Yeah, they're there. Okay, I'm fine.
Speaker 1:So you have the ones the ones that were on the side have now retreated back into the main formation, because they're starting to get picked off and yeah, there's too many men that are trying to get out of the targets. Yeah, so they're. They've already retreated back. These are the guys that are on the sides and in the in the tree line and Also on the front lines and behind the infantry men of the English line, just starting to fucking rampage these guys with.
Speaker 2:They're in fighter flight mode, right yeah, you gotta think about it psychologically Like. The Frenchmen have a whole lot more going on in their brain right now than the oh yeah, the Englishmen are now like thank god, we're not fucking hung over today. Yeah, they're like okay, I understand the somber thing. Yeah, I fucking get it now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when the archers in the front of the English line ran out of arrows and this is kind of cool, uh-huh they would drop their bows, of course, and they would turn to their, to their hatchets, their swords and specifically their mallets that they used to drive their stakes in, like those defensive stakes, those defensive wooden stakes and stuff, and and in turn they would slaughter the now disordered, fatigued and wounded Frenchmen and arms who stood before them with their fucking mallets and these guys are just stuck in the fucking mud yeah, it's like, and they're just picking them off.
Speaker 1:You're just beating in a fucking tin can really like it might take a lot of effort but you can get it done, because they can't move.
Speaker 2:Oh God, I just would hate to fucking be alive right now, at this point.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So the French? They couldn't really cope with the thousands of lightly armored, long bowman assailants who were much less encumbered by the mud and weight of their armor. Combined with the Englishmen at arms right, they literally just couldn't cope.
Speaker 1:So they're fucking tired, they're wearing 80 pounds worth of armor. They were tired like 500 fucking yards. Yeah, they were tired from doing a small suicide sprint essentially.
Speaker 2:It's like asking a basketball team to run suicides at the beginning of practice and then wonder why they can't do their layups at the end. So the effect of thousands of arrows, along with the grueling march in heavy armor through the mud, the heat and Breathing difficulties, enclosed visor, plate armor and the crowded conditions kind of meant the Frenchmen and arms could basically Hardly lift their weapons. When they finally engaged the English line, the exhausted French soldiers couldn't get back on their feet after being knocked to the ground by the English and not just by the English people being Fucking people buying by being knocked to their feet by the English.
Speaker 2:Strategy, because I feel like all of this was playing through the English's heads. They knew that this shit was gonna happen.
Speaker 1:I don't think that they totally knew right out of the gate. I think that they were hoping they were kind of hoping and there was an idea that Henry had and it played into his hands. Fucking played into all of a sudden he's just like. This is working amazingly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's fucking was and it fucking was as the melee unfolded.
Speaker 1:The second line, the French army, also joined into the attack, but the narrow terrain prevented the additional numbers from being effectively utilized. Yeah, historians suggest that those at the back of the deep French formation might have been trying to push forward to aid the advance, not realizing that they were impeding the maneuverability and fighting abilities of those at the front by pushing them into the English formation of lances.
Speaker 2:This is where a chain of command would have been fucking awesome. Would have been great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, somebody on a hill just kind of waving like oh don't go it takes you back to the Travis Scott concert.
Speaker 2:What?
Speaker 1:is the crowd.
Speaker 2:You know what is a crowd, do you know?
Speaker 1:It's this exact thing now. After the initial wave, the French would have had to battle over and on top of the fallen soldiers Before them. So you just fucking climbing over a mountain of bodies and that might be your fucking buddy.
Speaker 2:That's something that we don't really talk about, but like that's your friend, you might know that you know you might think that's your homey. You know what I mean. Like that's your homies crest on his goddamn armor and you're like. I just talked to him 20 minutes ago.
Speaker 1:And also think of, like the, the minute, arms, and you're seeing these nobles, like you're crawling over noble bodies.
Speaker 2:That's your leader and that's your guy.
Speaker 1:That's the guy who's supposed to be badass. That's the guy who came here for glory. Yeah, that's the guy?
Speaker 2:who's the guy that we followed in the battle he?
Speaker 1:has enough money to train on the daily and he is fucking dead and dead is Climbing over the guys in the most like Unhonorable way, just laying in the muck, trampled with footsteps on you, oh yeah like now, in such a tightly packed mess of Thousands of men, many Frenchmen trapped in the mud, covered in their expensive shiny armor, suffocated or drowned in the mud a scenario that was described by various sources and known to have occurred in other battles drowning In mud and peep. Thousands of men are just trampling over you, just like you said, just like your armor is just getting crushed and you're getting crushed inside of this.
Speaker 2:It's just getting worse and worse by the second, because as soon as you fall, that's the new line.
Speaker 1:Here's here's how to describe this when the Hulk beat up Iron man and the suit started crushing in on Tony Stark, yeah, okay, and should have known that was gonna happen, facing Anyway and this is like not that kind of fucking armor that I told you Star-Cost, and it's just crushing you. And then you just had the fucking mud filling up your helmet and you can't get up. You can't move.
Speaker 2:You ever put a helmet on that's too small for you. Yeah, it's just like that. Yeah, it hurts and you can feel every single point of where that's crushing in on you. That's happening around your entire body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's scary. And there's people next to you just and you're in the mud. You can't hear anything anymore. You just feel this cook.
Speaker 2:All you can hear is is the clutter of metal being piled on top of you and just and people screaming and you're drowning in blood, and mud and fucking Jesus Christ again.
Speaker 1:This is the best time to be alive right now, right now. Right now, right now, cuz it's a day's age, at least we get a bullet to the dome and we're done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, like we're not suffocating in mud. Yeah, underneath Mountains of our own men, it's fucking insane. So the French men at arms either became prisoners or perished in the thousands Thousands. The battle endured for approximately three hours, during which Henry fought in hand-to-hand combat that ass mother hours.
Speaker 1:Thousands. In three hours it's over six thousand.
Speaker 2:Grim was happy that day, man. Yeah, I'm was happy that Green.
Speaker 1:Reaper was fucking plucking him.
Speaker 2:He was chilling.
Speaker 1:What's up? Yo take, take, come on, come, come to daddy.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to reach you about your life's extended warranty turns out to run out. Okay, so you're coming with me coming with me today. Yes, I don't know why he's Indian but he is. But now he is yeah.
Speaker 1:I like him better. I like him better.
Speaker 2:That makes it so much better, like if I die and I have somebody walk up to me. He's like hello, thank you for calling heaven. We're unable to take your car. It looks like you're going to hell. I'm gonna be like okay.
Speaker 1:Reaper's just like hello. We are going to help today.
Speaker 2:Yes, we're going to other fucker. Please keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times.
Speaker 1:Please Tell me, do we have Indian food?
Speaker 2:I'm a way down there. I'm looking. If we did that would be fire, that would be. So I'd be. So it's the line to help. Wow, wow, I was borderline cultural appropriation, but it was all compliments and I hope they're happy with it, okay like I fucking fuck with it. Dude, it is so good.
Speaker 1:It's so good If that's what I got to eat on the way to hell. I'm happy I lose five pounds every time by shitting my pants and losing all the water weight in my body.
Speaker 2:You shit your pants off and you do, I do.
Speaker 1:Awesome, it's a regular. I wear diapers.
Speaker 2:That's really cool. That's that's an interesting pain point that you're talking about there. The battle endured for approximately three hours, during which Henry fought in hand-to-hand combat. That's where you cut me off. Upon learning that his youngest brother, humphrey, duke of Glaucastar, had been wounded, henry took guard and protected his brother, positioned at the front lines of the fighting, until Humphrey could be safely moved. That's awesome. I do the same shit for you, bro. Thank you.
Speaker 1:He got like, stabbed like right around the growing area. I don't think he lost to take or anything but that's good down. He wasn't able to fight. Yeah, he's fucking Henry just came out. He was like oh, fight for you, brother. I fucking started. Not like bro, he was decapitating fucking nobles. Yeah, as I would do for you.
Speaker 2:I want everybody to know. Cooper is much bigger than me. He has MMA experience. This is the man, the myth, the legend, cooper Hogue Okay, cooper Elliott. Over here now I'm me, and if I was in battle and I went down, I know for a fucking fact Cooper would be doing this shit. And that's sick Dude. Just picturing Henry going to blows for his brother like that. He has earned a lot of points for me already. But he earned more, just right there. I love the brotherly bond man. I do fucking badass.
Speaker 2:I'm a sucker for it so Henry actually Interred an axe blow to the head, yeah which dislodged a piece of the crown that was attached to his helmet.
Speaker 1:The funny part about his helmet was he was wearing it as like a gimmick to taunt the Frenchman. Yeah, it was like it ended up saving his fucking life shiny fucking gold crown, kind of like Alexander the Great War, this like big ol red fucking feathered.
Speaker 2:Helmet, very much so I am who I am. Yeah, fuck with me, fuck with me.
Speaker 1:I own this. I will I will air to this land go ahead and try.
Speaker 2:Yeah Is what he's like fucking do it.
Speaker 1:And he took a fucking axe blow to the head which dislodged a fucking.
Speaker 2:So whoever, gave him that explode to credit to them, because they saw that and they were like I'm gonna fucking take your head off. Exactly yeah, they probably got beheaded because they were trying to fuck with his little brother, you know just yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 2:The only French achievement during the battle was an assault on the lightly guarded English baggage train in the English camp, led by Cooper, zimbabwe Diaz and Quirk. That was good, he was a local night and it was also, you know, with a small group of men at arms valets, which are the squires and, along with you know, approximately 600 peasants, that they had a lot of people. Yeah, a lot of people a lot of people there, especially the 600 peasants.
Speaker 1:Look, every noble had a number of peasants that were just chilling yeah his peasants loved and lived in noble's lands and they were each paid like three shillings for fucking, participating in this fucking yeah, and shit like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so with all of these people, they did manage to like capture some of Henry's personal treasures, which included a spare crown.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was just like I got one on reserve, bra, yeah, well, hey, if you're gonna come on, anything might as well be the spare. You want something to say, bro?
Speaker 2:Come on me, bro. Bloody hell, don't fuck with my little brother. Now in some versions of this story. This attack occurred near the end of the battle and caused the English to believe they were being attacked from the rear, which is kind of were, but yeah but this is this is small force.
Speaker 1:This is not good for the captured French. Yeah, it's not good, because, regardless of the timing of the attack on the baggage train, at some point after the initial English victory, because at this point, oh no.
Speaker 2:I see where this is going. I see this is going.
Speaker 1:This was a decided victory, like the English were like we fucking won and the French were like they fucking won. But this baggage train had happened and they're like, oh, these fuckers are coming in from the rear. So Henry grew concerned that they were regrouping for another assault. Now this occurred after the English had overcome the French. Men at arms and the tired English soldiers were watching the French rear guard, which was described as incomparably numerous and still fresh, because they're all still on the other side of battle.
Speaker 2:It's amazing what perception like if the French had known that they had this perception of them exactly might have been different, but they didn't know that. They just saw their thousands and thousands of men. It's going down what the English saw was we just killed thousands of their men and they still have more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what the English captured, like thousands of their men too. Yeah so Le ferreur, le ferreur, le ferreur, and a war of it wavering. No, you did really good with that. I think you're right.
Speaker 2:No, I think you're right.
Speaker 1:Those guys, those were the two scribes at the battle. They were the ones like sitting on a tree, like writing down what was going on.
Speaker 2:If I could have a job in a war back then, it'd be described no one fucks with this guy.
Speaker 1:Who's gonna kill the scribe. No one fucks with the scribe.
Speaker 2:An asshole is gonna kill the scribe.
Speaker 1:So they similarly report that it was the signs of the French rearguard reorganizing and, quote unquote, marching forward in battle formation that led the English to believe that they were still under threat, which was probably just like they were trying to organize up top of like. Should we go, should we not?
Speaker 2:go like and, to be fair, if they had allowed the French to organize, could have well, yeah, so is what happened?
Speaker 1:was Henry, at this point, sent a dude over there and was like we just captured X amount of people and we killed everyone? Else, hey guys, hey yeah we fucking won, so either like y'all want to stop. Yeah, it's either give up or we're gonna come and fucking kill you. Yeah, and at this point they all fucking dispersed, but in between, this time as a result, a massacre of the French prisoners ensued. Yeah, it appears that this was they didn't want to have reinforcements.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So it appears that this was solely Henry's decision, since the English Knights found it to be against Chivalry and their own interests to kill valuable hostages, who were typically held for ransom absolutely and it was yeah.
Speaker 2:But so Henry, even Henry was thinking yeah, exactly Henry, even we like.
Speaker 1:As far as threatening to hang those who didn't follow his orders at this point, he's like I'm gonna fuck you up if you don't do this, because we're about to fucking die if you don't do this, just in case. So in this case, in Whatever case it is, henry ordered the slaughter of what might have been several thousand French prisoners, sparing only those of the highest rank who were more likely to fetch a substantial ransom under the chivalric rules of warfare.
Speaker 2:I can't blame them, dude, I really can't know it's like self in his shoes, I probably would have done the same shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely because which sucks, but like and so most historians do agree with Henry's decision. They're like yeah, we fucking get this because it's a very valid concern, and you could have been wiped out. Because the concern was that the prisoners, who, rather unusually, outnumbered their captors and they?
Speaker 2:yeah, they just weren't armed and we were our.
Speaker 1:Well, that's like they could realize that there were numerous, like the numeric advantage of like oh, there's a fuckload of French still up on the hill. Yeah, they could come down and help us out and they could rearm themselves on the battlefield.
Speaker 2:Could have changed the whole time.
Speaker 1:There's so many dead fucking people, so many weapons just laying around and fucking, potentially overwhelm the exhausted English forces the French very well, could have taken advantage of this chaos and Overwhelmed the English. Yeah, they still had the numbers even after this battle, they still had the numbers and just like you said, ian, it's a battle of perception, mm-hmm. And the French didn't realize it. Yeah, and Henry fucking knew that for a fact.
Speaker 2:Henry knew. Henry knew both Perceptions, understood what was happening and was like oh, they feel good, mm-hmm, like they could feel good if they look at this this way. You know what I mean. And if they feel good, that's bad for us. Yeah uh-huh.
Speaker 2:Dude. I Side note I really want to look into, like, the psychology of of some of these kinds of battles because, like it's fascinating psychology has always been fascinating to me. Sure, thinking of the, the psychology going through Henry's head, going through these French soldiers head, think, going through the English soldiers head, there's so many different, conflicting things happening at once that this outcome was the only thing that was ever gonna happen. Oh yeah, it could have been so different.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, psychology was different if it didn't rain, if the fields haven't been plowed the night before, the the weeks before, well, blame God, it was the rain. Well, honestly, henry goes and thanks God after this fucking victory.
Speaker 2:Of course he does. It's always God. It's always God.
Speaker 1:Let's a 1400.
Speaker 2:Henry lost a couple points that they didn't have a lot of. The earth is flat now. The French experienced a Devastating defeat, with approximately 6000 other soldiers killed in the battle. The list of casualties included numerous Influential military and political figures of the previous generation, which is, back then, fucking big deal the shit we're about to go through is just insane.
Speaker 1:It fucked up France for a while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because they put all their eggs in one fucking basket, so they really did. Now, among the fallen were 90 to 120 great lords and Ben Arets, including three dukes, nine counts and one viscount, as well as my scout, sorry and one vice count, as well as an archbishop. France lost key royal office holders such as the constable, an admiral, the master of Crossbowmen and his three sons, the master of the royal household and the Provo of the marshals, these all have names attached to them, but no one's gonna know who these fucking names.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we don't, we don't need to go into that, but essentially what happened was France put all their eggs in this basket. They sent these people to this battle. All of these people died and in France was so confident in their ability to win this battle they were like, oh, we'll be fine, yeah. But then when they realized they fucking lost all of they. Had key points, like it's like you took out all of California in Florida's and Texas and and Idaho's senators.
Speaker 1:The reason why there's so many nobles is because the king himself of France was unfit. He's looking so if you took out the king of England. You have now this Potential to have a mass amount of people behind you. Yeah to fucking fight for the crown. Yeah, of France.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just huge. Yeah, so you have all these fucking people that come in and that are after this shit, and so that's what anybody who's after this shit is already in a key point of office or a key point of position that is invaluable to the French System and they all die.
Speaker 2:God man. Now, according to the heralds, 3,069 knights and squires were killed poor squires, I know and an additional 2,600 unidentified corpses were discovered. Entire noble families were wiped out and in some areas, an entire generation of nobility met their end. The bailiffs of nine major northern towns also perished, often along with their sons, relatives and supporters. And the words of historian Juliette Barker, the battle caused significant loss among the natural leaders of French society in Artois.
Speaker 1:Artois yeah, artois.
Speaker 2:Pante, Normandy and Picardie. So they lost big natural leaders in these big French cities, right.
Speaker 1:Factions of France.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah not cities, but France. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Now, estimates of the number of prisoners vary from like 700 to 2200, including notable figures like the Duke of Orleans and Bourbon, the counts of Yves. Why did you give this part?
Speaker 1:to me Because I wanted to hear you, jesus, fucking.
Speaker 2:Christ, I'm just going to send it and then I'm going to send it yeah estimates of the number of prisoners vary from like 700 to 2200. And this included notable figures like the Duke of Orleans and Bourbon, the counts of Yves and Dom Richemont brother, which was the brother of the Duke Brittany, and stepbrother of Henry V yeah his own fucking stepbrother died. Yeah, and Harcourt, as well as Marshal Jean-Lemagne, all prominent figures in later stages of the Hundred Years War.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go read the book Hundred Years War and you'll get it. I didn't read it, but there's like a lot of pages in that one.
Speaker 2:I probably butchered all of those names, so you're welcome Pronounce them on your own, you know, pronounce them on your own.
Speaker 1:We know that at least 112 Englishmen were killed in that battle with Monastrette a French chronicler reporting 600 English fatalities. Jean de Waverne. Waverne, a knight on the French side, wrote that English fatalities numbered 1600 men of all ranks. But the number, the common number that I keep finding is 600 men out of King Henry's army died.
Speaker 2:That's so fucking crazy. That's only 6, the 10% of them died. And when you look at the French fatalities, yeah now, oh yeah, they go off.
Speaker 1:Although the victory was a significant military triumph, its consequences were multifaceted. It did not immediately result in further English territorial gains, as Henry's primary objective was to return to England because, remember, he had conquered that one town in the very beginning. He wanted to head north and got diverted because the French army was there, and so they traveled way further than originally planned, right.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And then they wanted to get to Calais because they just wanted to get there. It was a safe city and they could head back and then regroup and then come back because he lost so many men because of dysentery.
Speaker 2:So I came over with 12,000 and you lost half of them. Could you say that they were shitting bricks? They were definitely shitting bricks.
Speaker 1:So he did end up getting to England on November 16th, to a triumphant welcome in London on the 23rd. Henry returned as a victorious hero seen as divinely favored in the eyes of his subjects and the European powers beyond France. The battle solidified the legitimacy of the Lancastrian monarchy and paved the way for Henry's future campaigns to assert his rights and privileges in France.
Speaker 2:Lancastrian monarchy is. Is that what the Lancastr's and Game of Thrones are kind of named after? I think, so yeah, this whole situation.
Speaker 1:I think, so I didn't look into it. I have no idea. No, that's totally fair.
Speaker 2:That's totally fair and it's definitely a pop culture reference. So it's not that important for the podcast, but that's interesting because I'm going to look into that, because I'm actually curious, but anyway. So other benefits for the English unfolded in the long term. Shortly after the battle, the fragile truce between the Arminiak and the Burgundian factions quickly disintegrated.
Speaker 1:This is within, yeah, this is this is within France these two groups.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we haven't talked about that, but they are just two groups. These are just repercussions of this battle. So the Arminiaks bore the brunt of the battle's consequences, suffering the majority of senior casualties and bearing the blame for the you know the overall defeat. The Burgundians seized the opportunity and, within 10 days of the battle, mobilized their armies and advanced on fucking Paris, which is they basically, with this battle caused civil war.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 2:Now this division within France allowed Henry a year and a half to prepare militarily and politically for another campaign. When that campaign eventually took place, it was facilitated by the damage inflicted on the political and military structures of Normandy by the Battle of Agencourt. Because, remember, we are not we, I'm not English, but they fucked their shit up?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they did. Now, in 1420, the Treaty of Troy's was signed, recognizing Henry V as the regent and heir to the French throne.
Speaker 2:It was, it was, it was, you know, witnessed by Brad Pitt from Troy. No, it's not the same. Oh sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry Troy's.
Speaker 1:TROYES. The treaty also arraigned for his marriage to Catherine of Aloys, the daughter of King Charles VI of France, with the aim of uniting the English and French crowns. Despite continued military success, Henry V fell ill and died in 1422 at the age of 35.
Speaker 2:You only got a few years. Oh, my God, you need to conquer a nation, get this, get this his infant son.
Speaker 1:Henry VI infant son succeeded him as king of both England and France.
Speaker 2:I love history. I can't wait till we get like 300 years out of line and they look back at us and they're like what the fuck? Oh, I mean, it's just because we look at these guys and we're like a baby was the king. That's crazy. I can only imagine what they're thinking 300 years in the future about us. You know they've let a cheeto become president. We don't do it often, but that was nice. That was nice.
Speaker 1:The Hundred Years War continued after Henry's death, characterized by varying degrees of success for the English. The conflict persisted for several decades, featuring intermittent truces and renewed hostilities. The war would finally come to an end in 1453 with the French victory at the Battle of Castillon. That's a big one We'll eventually cover that one Marking the conclusion of English territorial ambitions in France, and they retained only the region of Calais. Wow, mm hmm.
Speaker 2:The Battle of Agencourt, with its decisive English victory, had a profound and lasting impact on the Hundred Years War, which is huge. It elevated Henry V's status and contributed to the consolidation of La Castrian rule in England. The Treaty of Troy sought to unite the English and French crowns but perpetuated the conflict. Henry V's untimely death and the complexities of the ongoing war shaped its later stages. Ultimately, the Battle of Castillon in 1453 marked the end of the Hundred Years War and brought the territorial ambitions of England and France to a close. Agencourt remains a crucial historical event, influencing the course of English and French history and diplomacy for years to come.
Speaker 1:And that's the Battle of Agencourt Bruh.
Speaker 2:That's crazy. Like I read the script, Don't get me wrong, I read the script but actually, saying it out loud, it really opens up this whole dialogue of how fucking insane history is History in general, but it had to be this specific fucking battle. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Like this was just Dude. There are thousands, hundreds of thousands of these types of battles that happen.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, this one just happened to have dire consequences for the French and English.
Speaker 1:eventually, it's just the fucking, the bravery, the fear that these men had to feel.
Speaker 2:Nobody would do that. Now, I mean not here not in America, not in.
Speaker 2:Like I think there are people that would do it, yes, faced with it, but nobody has in their brain that this is even a possibility Having to face an army that has thousands more men and fucking, just absolutely fuck them up in a way that nobody thought possible. It's so astounding to me the fact that this was even a thing that they could have done and they did it. Not only did they do it, but they capitalized on it and it helped them throughout the course of this hundred years war and stuff like that. I mean, it's just fascinating to me the psychology of being there. Yeah, it's so crazy.
Speaker 1:It's just in the thought of just how they died is fucking crazy. Ok, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean that gives me shivers and gives me the rickets, man, like that's. That's a real fucking thing when you think about terrifying. You're in a can crusher my boy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just with no hope. So yeah, that's the battle of Agakort, ladies and gentlemen. No hope, no fucking hope. What are we going to do here? We follow us on all the social bullshits. You can find everything at drinkingourwaythroughhistorycom. Yeah, and Ian, do you have anything to say to the kids?
Speaker 2:Hey man, if you made it this far in the episode, I bet you can't guess what I'm going to say next. But you're a fucking champion, I would suck your dick, I would.
Speaker 1:I would suck you dry, ok so he's going to hold that to you and anyway. So stay beautiful bitches, because we fucking love you.
Speaker 2:We emphasis on fucking love you.
