ABOUT FACTS NET War

Man is an animal that is constantly at war. Hopefully this will change some day, but it certainly hasn't happened yet. Maybe that is because we like nothing better than fighting or hearing about a desperate battle where an army was totally outnumbered and in desperate straits but overcame adversity and won the battle against all odds. Included in this scenario are battles, that while not won, delayed the enemy so much that it gave time for the outnumbered forces to have their main armies rally and win the day.

Thermopylae

When I think of armies fighting a delaying tactic against insurmountable odds, the battle at Thermopylae in 480 B.C. always comes to mind. What made this battle so memorable is the fact that 300 Spartans and about 1100 Spartan allies from other Greek states decided to take a stand against a Persian army, that some say might have been as large as a million men. What could have been more hopeless than this? The Spartans wedged themselves in a narrow pass while their allies protected their rear. Xerxes, the king of the Persians, thought that he would just have his army run right over the Greeks. The pass that the Spartans defended was only about nine feet wide at its narrowest point. There was a cliff on one side which no longer exists since silt has built up. When the Persians attacked for the first time, the Spartans held firm and would spear a Persian and toss him over the cliff. Wave after Persian wave attacked the Spartans. As they were driven back they would become speared by their own men who were rushing forward. Finally the first attack was over and Xerxes was furious. Three hundred Spartans had held off the might of the entire Persian army and made their king look like a fool. The Spartan soldiers who defended the pass were the personal bodyguard of King Leonidas who was there commanding them. Sparta had two kings. One of the amazing things here is that Leonidas originally had 4200 men but sent 2600 of them back. He knew that no one would survive this battle and must have felt that he had sufficient men to delay the Persians without sacrificing more men than he had to. The next thing Xerxes did was send in his best soldiers, they were his personal bodyguard, the "Immortals" If he would have thought this out a little better, he would have realized that this was a bad move. Everyone would watch the Immortals or Companions as they are sometimes known and if they didn't succeed, the rest of his forces would be very scared.

The Immortals attacked. but were massacred. It seems that the Spartans used a much longer spear and the Persians couldn't get close enough to do much damage. The Persians attacked again and again but to no avail. Their soldiers were so scared that some jumped off the cliffs themselves. Just as they think there is no way for them to get through the Spartans, a Greek traitor tells Xerxes about a path that will lead the Persians around behind the Spartans. This path is protected by the rest of the allies, about 1100 men. The Persians get around the Spartans and the main Persian Army finally pushes forward as all the Greek soldiers try for the high ground, but to no avail. The Thebans, about 400 men, surrender but the rest of the force bunches together and decides to fight to the end. They are obliterated by thousands of arrows and spears. The Spartans had managed to kill about 20,000 Persians and hold them off long enough for the Greeks to repel them.

Agincourt

In 1415 King Henry V of England set sail, with about 10,000 men and horses, for France. He was claiming the French throne and he felt that he had the army to back up his claim. The French had raided the English coast and this may have had something to do with the English invasion. Henry had decided to hire way more archers than men at arms. Why not? The English archer was one of the most deadly fighters and was only about half as expensive as the men at arms and he could switch to an axe or sword if he had to. French leadership was sorely lacking at the time. Henry had attacked a town known as Harfleur and in the process won the battle but lost about one third of his men. He also had to leave about 1500 men to guard the town. The rest of Henry's men were mostly sick from drinking contaminated water and wine and sleeping on the ground. This sickly force was composed of only 900 men at arms and 5,000 archers. The English discovered that a force of about 6,000 was blocking their way so they had to go around it. They marched for days with little or nothing to eat, making their plight even worse. The last thing that you would want to do with a force like this is meet up with the main French army, but you guessed it, Henry found himself blocked by just that army.

The main French army now blocked the English from Calais and safety. What could Henry do with his weakened force? He was terribly outnumbered by a large, healthy French army. Henry, knowing the state of his men, offered to return the town of Harfleur and pay damages, but the French also wanted him to renounce the throne of France. He wouldn't do it. One thing that I like about those days was honesty. The English released the French prisoners who promised to return if the English won the battle. Of course they thought that the English didn't have a chance.

The next day, at the break of dawn, the French army fielded somewhere around 30,000 men and faced an English army of only 5,000 sickly archers and 900 weak men at arms. Why the French set up their forces the way they did, is still a mystery to this day. They set up their army in such a way that they could not take advantage of their numbers and outflank the English. This was because the field that the armies were on was bordered by forests and at some points were only 900 yards wide. The battle was to take place at the the 900 yard wide area which favored the smaller force. The English force was thought to have set up in three groups of one single line with 2,500 archers at each flank. The French army was set up quite different. It had three lines of men with the first two lines composed of men at arms and the last was cavalry. The cavalry was also on the flanks with 1,600 on the left flank and 800 on the right flank. Some cannon were set up in the rear.

It has been said that every French Nobleman wanted to be in the front and they all forced their way there, disrupting archers, men at arms and others and forming just a mass of men. The French army was more like a mob and each nobleman wanted to be the leader. The English marched toward the French and amazingly were allowed to come within 250 yards, 250 yards is within longbow range. The English archers each had an eight foot long stake that had been sharpened on both ends to defend against a cavalry charge. These stakes were planted into the ground at an angle in front of the archers. An English archer could fire ten arrows per minute, meaning there were always arrows in the air when arrows were hitting. The French were outraged and launched a cavalry charge. Behind the calvary were the French men at arms.

The French charge was undermanned due to the fact that the horses and men had not been kept in their positions and the arrow volley had surprised them. It is estimated that at least four volleys could have been fired at the charging cavalry and in their fury, the surviving cavalry ran into the stakes. The French men at arms were about 5 minutes behind the charge. The English archers now used armor piercing arrows and fired from their flanks at an angle. As the French advanced they were forced into a narrower and narrower field. The French flanks compressed because those on the ends were trying to get away from the English arrows. The French force became so compact that they couldn't swing their swords and axes when they finally got to the English line. The French were also exhausted from running across the field. The French almost broke the English line but it reformed. The English began to cut down the restricted attackers but the French in the rear continued to press forward, handicapping the French in front even more. As the French advanced, the English archers would attack the men at arms in groups with sharp weapons, making quick work of the heavily weighted down knights. The French knights would fall and then not be able to get up due to the weight of their armor and others falling on them.

The English decimated the first French line and when the second arrived, many of them beat a path out of there upon seeing the carnage caused to the first line. The soldiers of the second line who did fight were either killed or captured. There was still the third French line. Henry then ordered all prisoners killed. The men at arms refused so he ordered the archers to do it and they did. After he killed the prisoners the third French line left the field of battle and the English had won the battle.