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Javier E

Agincourt was a battle like no other … but how do the French remember it? | W... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...versary-how-french-remember-it

UK France battle history decisive

shared by Javier E on 26 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Almost everything about the Anglo-French bloodbath at the place known as “Azincourt” is disputed, apart from the sensational outcome
  • ome say the French-English ratio was six to one. Recent scholarship puts the disparity at four to three. Most agree that Henry fielded perhaps 1,500 men-at-arms and about 6,000 archers.
  • Overall, the death toll was appalling. French sources suggest that they lost between 4,000 and 10,000 men. Almost as bad, from the French point of view, its governing elite, including dukes and bishops, was annihilated.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Estimates of the English dead, by contrast, range from improbable (100) to plausible (1,500).
  • The year 1415 should have been the definitive riposte to 1066, but the after-life of Agincourt is not straightforward. This is so for perhaps three reasons.
  • In the first place, not even Shakespeare could swallow the Agincourt Kool-Aid. In 1599, cheerfully plundering The Famous Victories of Henry V, he wrote Henry V, one of his most popular plays. On closer examination, however, Shakespeare is far from gung-ho.
  • Second, there’s the enduring controversy (which Shakespeare does address) about the king’s cold-blooded execution of his French prisoners, a debate bedevilled by double standards: Henry must be judged by his mores, not ours.
  • Third, Agincourt suffers from being one-sided. In the renewal of a great myth, all parties must participate. 2015 is also the 200th anniversary of Waterloo, a defeat whose afterlife is as much celebrated in France as in Britain.
  • When it comes to Agincourt, the French, who generally idolise military matters, are either silent or ignorant. “This was just such a bad defeat,” says Georges-Picot. She adds that this humiliation is not taught in schools, where Henry V of England is unknown. It is almost as if neither the battle nor its victor had ever been.
  • Curator Leduc has put together an enthralling historical display in the museum at Les Invalides: 100 years of French military history, beginning with the shame of Azincourt but culminating in Marignano.
bluekoenig

Historians Reassess Battle of Agincourt - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...25agincourt.html

battle new york times history britain hundred years war agincourt

shared by bluekoenig on 25 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • bluekoenig on 25 Oct 19
     
    This article details the questionable parts of the Battle of Agincourt from the Hundred Years War which has remained part of British pride for 400 years
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