The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 6, Issue 1, Winter 2017 | Página 9

provided protection to his torso and enabled easy movement. 2
In terms of command and control, a changing battlefield emerged. This
change originated with dominance on the battlefield shifting from shock to missile
power. It enabled England’s King Edward III and the Black Prince, respectively at
Crecy and Poitiers, to establish themselves on high ground and fight the battle as
they saw it from that vantage. The change from shock to missile meant that battles
became of longer duration and subject to greater control in terms of engaging and
for purposes of disengagement. 3
The most important advance of the period was Henry V’s introduction of
the Royal Navy. He realized that not having a standing fleet at the ready was an
impediment to quick and decisive action. His establishment of a standing fleet gave
the English greater maneuverability, as the English armies in France were always
dependent upon sea power for supply and reinforcement.
Analysis of the
Battle of Agincourt presents
a
different
challenge.
Numbers do not match up in
various accounts of the
battle. In Cursed Kings,
Jonathan Sumption puts the
odds at roughly two to one,
which seems baffling. 4 In
The Agincourt War, Arthur
Burne reaches a figure of six
thousand English to twenty-
five thousand French. 5 The
English figures are of course
always subject to desertion,
straggling, and wastage.
Burne also notes that a
French historian in recent
years, Fenrindad Lot, as well
as the German historian Hans
Delbrück,
reached
the
astounding conclusion the
English outnumbered the
Figure 1. King Henry V, by unknown artist. Oil
French that day. One can at
on panel, late sixteenth or early seventeenth
least charitably excuse the
century. National Portrait Gallery, UK.
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