id="Page_27" class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 27]"/> and many of the squires there—and a good half even of the forces at Poitiers—were English-speaking, and had no experience of life save that confined to this island, up to the moment when they set out for the Great Raids upon the Continent.

As the Hundred Years’ War proceeded, as it approached its second phase in which Henry V. was actually successful in obtaining the Crown of France, or rather the reversion of it, the national feeling was growing rapidly upon either side, and by the time of Joan of Arc’s campaign and of the subsequent loss of Normandy by the Plantagenets, everyone outside the small governing class of either country had come to think of the business as a national one upon either side. But with Crécy it was not so, and we must approach the military problems of Crécy with the political provision in mind that the whole affair of that battle and of its immediate successors was a feudal occupation—one had almost said pastime—engaged within the circle of that widespread French-speaking nobility, common to and intermarried between Gaul and Britain, which, for three hundred years, ruled society from the Grampians to the Mediterranean.

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II

THE CAMPAIGN OF CRÉCY

The Campaign of Crécy took place within a district of France contained by an east and west base 200 miles in length and an eastern border north and south 160 miles in length, and sketched in the map opposite.

The rectangular parallelogram so formed is nearly equally divided between land and sea, the south-eastern half being a portion of Northern France, and the north-western half the English Channel. The land half is thus roughly triangular, having Paris at its extreme south-eastern corner, Calais at its extreme north-eastern, the neighbourhood of Avranches with St Malo Bay at its south-western corner. It includes part of the provinces of Normandy, the Ile de France, Picardy and Artois, and part, or all, of the modern departments of the Manche, Orne, Calvados, Eure, Seine-et-Oise, Seine, Seine-Inférieure, Oise, Somme, and Pas-de-Calais.

It will be seen that this territory is nearly evenly divided by the River Seine, and the campaign of Crécy is also divided by that river in the sense that the English advance took place wholly to the west of it, and the English retreat wholly to the east of it.

The campaign, as a whole, resolves itself (up to and including the Battle of Crécy, which is the subject of this book, and excluding the continuation of the march after Crécy, and the capture of Calais) into an advance from the Channel coast to Paris, and a retreat from Paris to the Channel again, the two portions being divided by the crossing of the Seine at Poissy. The advance leaves the coast at the summit of that projection of Normandy called the Cotentin, and proceeds a little south of east towards Paris, the walls of which are reached by its outermost skirmishers, while the main army crosses the Seine at Poissy. The retreat is effected from Poissy northward to the victorious field of Crécy, and later from Crécy, on the same line, to the siege and capture of Calais.

The time occupied from the day of landing to the day of the Battle of Crécy inclusive, is but forty-six days, of which not quite two-thirds are taken up by advance, and rather more than a third by the retreat. The English troops landed on Wednesday, July 12th, 1346. They crossed the Seine at Poissy upon August 14th. They fought at Crécy upon Saturday, August 26th.

The total distance traversed by the main body in these two limbs of the campaign is instructive as showing the leisure of the first part, its advance, and the precipitancy of the second part, its retreat.

The distance by road as the army marched from St Vaast, where it landed, across the river at Poissy, and so to Crécy, was a total of 345 miles. Of this the first part, or advance, was 215, the second part, or retreat, 130. The first part occupied, counting the day of landing and the day of crossing at Poissy, not less than 34 days, while the latter portion or retreat of 130 miles, including the day of battle itself, took up not more than 12 days, or, excluding the battle, only 11. The average rate of the advance was not more than 6¼ miles a day, the average rate of the retreat very nearly double.

It must not be imagined, of course, that the advance took place in prompt and regular fashion. It was, as we shall see, irresolute for many days, and irregular throughout, while the retreat was a hurried one upon all but one day of which the troops were pressed to their uttermost. But the contrast is sufficient to show the difference between the frames of mind in which Edward III. took up the somewhat hazy plan of an “invasion,” which was really no more than a raid, and that in which he attempted to extricate himself from the consequences of his original vagueness of intent. In the first, he was as slow as he was uncertain; in the second, he was as precipitate as he was determined.

In the last days of June, 1346, Edward III. had gathered a force, small indeed for the purpose which he seems to have had in mind, but large under the conditions of transport which he could command. It was probably just under 20,000 actual fighting men. At this point, however, as it is of material interest to the rest of the story, we must pause to consider what these units meant. When we say a little less (or it may have been a little more) than 20,000 fighting men, we mean that the “men-at-arms” (that is, fully equipped, mounted men, for the most part gentlemen), together with not 4000 Welsh and Border Infantry, and approximately 10,000 Archers, bring us near to that total.

But an army of the fourteenth century was accompanied by a number of servants, at least equal to its mounted armed gentry: men who saw to the equipment and service of the knights. No man at arms was fit to pass through a campaign without at least one aide, if only for armouring; and for all the doubtfulness of the records, we know that the Yeoman Archers were also served by men who carried a portion of their equipment, and who saw to their supply in action. It is impossible to make any computation at all accurate of the extra rations this organisation involved, nor of what proportion of these uncounted units could be used in the fighting. We are perhaps safe in saying that the total number who landed were not double the fighting men actually counted, and that Edward’s whole force certainly was much more than 20,000 but almost as certainly not 40,000 men. We must imagine, all told, perhaps 5000 horses to have been assembled with the force for transport over sea: others would be seized for transport on the march. It is remarkable that Edward carefully organised certain small auxiliary bodies, smiths, artificers, etc., and took with him five cannon.[1]

It was not until Tuesday, the 11th of July, that the very large fleet which the King had pressed for the service was able to sail from the Solent and Spithead. It crossed in the night with a northerly breeze, and appeared