Hi
Do we know if the English archers emplaced their stakes in the first position they took up on the day of the battle? I mean actually dug them into the ground. If they did, then they obviously had to dig them out again before moving forward and re-emplacing them, presumably re-sharpening the pointy bits and all within extreme longbow range of the French.
The reason I am asking is that in my current favourite set of rules, stakes can only be emplaced once.
Now I had assumed that when the English took up their first position, they did indeed emplace their stakes but on checking the three or four books I have on Agincourt they do not specifically mention the stakes being emplaced in the first position taken up.
And while on the subject does anyone know of any other instances in battles in the Hundred Years War where archers emplaced their stakes more than once?
Grateful for any help.
Cheers Paul
We had a debate on Agincourt, movement, and stakes on the dbmmlist a decade or more ago, and my only clear memory is that one of the chronicle sources for the battle said that the English pulled up the stakes and moved them; and one source said that they were left behind in the original position. So, IIRC, the primary sources disagree on what happened.
Ah, here we go: a quote from Anne Curry (
Agincourt: A New History, p. 204):
QuoteIt is interesting, however, that the stakes are mentioned in relatively few accounts. ... Thus Titus Livius has the archers take up their stakes when they move towards the enemy. In his account, however, he has it that all of the English had initially fixed stakes in the ground as a shield against the advancing cavalry. The Pseudo-Elmham says rather that the archers left behind their stakes at the advance.
My own speculative synthesis at the time was that all the archers planted stakes in the first position, but by the time of the advance they knew that the only French cavalry were on the wings. So the archers on the wings pulled up and subsequently re-emplaced their stakes, but those in the centre didn't bother. Purely speculative, as I say.
Welcome to the world of Agincourt controversy :)
I'm on a train at the moment to no chance to check the sources but several sources say they did emplace stakes, then uproot them and re-emplace them. Others only mention in one position or the other.
There has been considerable doubt cast be some authors on whether, once the stakes were in position, the English would be able to pull them up and reposition them.
Logically though, the stakes were needed for the English plan to work. So they had to position them in the first position if they intended to fight there. Likewise in the second position. The preparation to move took some time. Henry ordered his baggage to close on the rear of the English line - a manoueuver not fully completed but signalling preparation time before the move. The English advance was not fast - it had a pause to keep the line in order. Having arrived in position, most of the archers could have been put on stake duty and a screen pushed out and down the flanking woods to harass the French, falling back when they showed signs of life.
I suppose the question arises from some bright spark imagining that once a stake is in the ground, it is too firmly fixed to remove, and/or that putting stakes in is easier than getting them out. In my experience with fence-posts, the opposite is true: unless they have settled in for years, more effort is needed to fix them in the ground than to remove them (a few blows with a hammer and a good wiggle generally persuades them out). Whether this transfers to stakes emplaced on the battlefield I do not know, but suspect this may be the case.
As Anthony points out, at Agincourt stakes were an essential part of the English archers' system, and leaving them behind would not be a decision taken lightly, if at all. Duncan's idea that the wings moved up (along with their stakes) and the centre did not has a certain appeal.
Isn't it muddy ground? It would make sense for the English to choose a field where stakes could easily be emplaced. As Patrick says disemplacing a fence post is quite easy,nso there would be only a small extra effort required to remove, replace and re sharpen them. Part of the power of a stake is that the enemy impacts the sharp end and thus pushes the stake down and back, so tge fixing into the ground does not have to be rock solid for it to work.
Roy
Quote from: aligern on November 23, 2017, 02:50:51 PM
Isn't it muddy ground? It would make sense for the English to choose a field where stakes could easily be emplaced. As Patrick says disemplacing a fence post is quite easy,nso there would be only a small extra effort required to remove, replace and re sharpen them. Part of the power of a stake is that the enemy impacts the sharp end and thus pushes the stake down and back, so tge fixing into the ground does not have to be rock solid for it to work.
Roy
As somebody who has put in many many fenceposts, rock solid ground is not to be recommended. You'll not get the post so well seated
If the ground is soft enough to walk on without sinking in too much, it'll still put up more resistance to the stake than the horse's chest will
Quote from: Jim Webster on November 23, 2017, 03:15:40 PM
As somebody who has put in many many fenceposts, rock solid ground is not to be recommended. You'll not get the post so well seated
A problem the English found at one battle IIRC.
Quote from: nikgaukroger on November 23, 2017, 04:47:55 PM
Quote from: Jim Webster on November 23, 2017, 03:15:40 PM
As somebody who has put in many many fenceposts, rock solid ground is not to be recommended. You'll not get the post so well seated
A problem the English found at one battle IIRC.
Supposedly, the ground was too hard at the battle of Verneuil after a dry spell. Not sure this is based on actual evidence or a speculation why the French cavalry weren't detered by the stakes, though.
Back at Agincourt, the ground was wet - it had been raining for days. We know that the area in which the battle was fought had been recently ploughed, though it is speculated (based on the ease with which the English traversed it) that the ground around and in front of the initial English position had not been.
Diverting slightly to the mechanics of banging in stakes, do we know whether English longbowmen's stakes were essentially smooth cylinders with sharpened ends, so that planting them in the ground required hammer blows which would blunt the upward end, or were stubs of branches left on each side so that the stakes could be hammered in without spoiling the point?
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on November 23, 2017, 07:37:25 PM
Diverting slightly to the mechanics of banging in stakes, do we know whether English longbowmen's stakes were essentially smooth cylinders with sharpened ends, so that planting them in the ground required hammer blows which would blunt the upward end, or were stubs of branches left on each side so that the stakes could be hammered in without spoiling the point?
I've seen it assumed that the stake had a blunt upper end which was then sharpened once it was hammered in
Moving it would mean you'd end up having to resharpen but in soft ground it wouldn't be too much of a problem
Jim
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on November 23, 2017, 07:37:25 PM
Diverting slightly to the mechanics of banging in stakes, do we know whether English longbowmen's stakes were essentially smooth cylinders with sharpened ends, so that planting them in the ground required hammer blows which would blunt the upward end, or were stubs of branches left on each side so that the stakes could be hammered in without spoiling the point?
It's assumed they were plain poles, as they had to be carried by the archers. Certainly, later ones were plain poles.
Is it possible that a supply of stakes, exceeding the number of archers, was actually carried in the baggage?
Quote from: Agrippa on November 24, 2017, 11:02:06 AM
Is it possible that a supply of stakes, exceeding the number of archers, was actually carried in the baggage?
Here is the original report, as given in the
Gesta Henrici Quinti...therefore the king gave orders that
each archer should provide himself
with a pole or staff, six feet in length
of sufficient thickness, and sharpened
at each end; directing that whenever
the French should approach to battle
with troops of horse of that sort, each
archer should fix his pole before him
in front and those who were behind
other poles intermediately; one end
being fixed in the ground before
them, the other sloping towards the
enemy higher than a man's waist from
the ground.
The implication is one stake per archer and they carried them with them. Note "pole or staff" - these were not necessarily as thick as fence posts (indeed, the famous image of Burgundian archers with stakes shows them as quite weedy).
Stakes may have gone in the baggage on later occassions but the baggage train at Agincourt was deliberately stripped back for what was supposed to be a quick dash to Calais.
Incidentally, while chasing the quote, I found this (https://www.history.org.uk/files/download/16093/1445441730), which is a nice little overview.
And in the overview is a picture which shows that getting the stakes in really needs a uniform technique, while sharpening them after insertion appears to be challenging, at least for re-enactors.
The Gesta Henrici Quinti quote (well hunted, Anthony) does confirm that the stakes (at least in this case) were sharpened at both ends before use. I wonder if using a wooden mallet to drive them into the ground - especially one with a head of a softer wood than the stakes themselves - would have helped to preserve the points.
Hi
Very many thanks for all the thoughtful comments above. With your help I have managed to convince the author of the rules to make stakes movable in the next edition of the rules (To the Strongest!).
Cheers Paul
Just be careful with the game effect of that "victory".
If your longbows are powerful in the rules, and your stakes make them safe from melee threat, you might end up with a super army that renders all opponents too difficult to play .
And consider the scale of your battle. Does it model deployment from camp, or does it start much closer to the point when the action starts? If it is the later, you have taken something pre game and made it a tactical feature for one army, and turned a defensive tactic into an offensive game trick.
Just because we think something happened, doesn't always mean it helps your game to include it in the rules, as it is always the special rules that unbalance things.
Mark has a point. I think this is the one occassion I can think of when stakes were moved. It needed time and, possibly, certain ground conditions.
Mark's point about battle phases is also worth bearing in mind. Stakes are more associated with pre-battle preparation than tactical manoeuver phase.
However, we also need to bear in mind that many (most) of the battle we fight are 1 offs without the strategic, political, and psychological factors that applied in history. For an example and army may well attack in a situation where we would think it daft in our one off battle, but other factors applied which effectively forced their hand.
Also fro Agincourt in particular we must recall that the English only had their stakes because they had gotten wind of the French plan to use a mounted attack on the archers as opposed to their then normal approach of fighting on foot (which needed no stakes to counter in the English experience). Cutting the stakes whilst on the march shows it was something of an emergency response, albeit one that worked well and then became a standard part of the English repertoire 8)
Hi
I do not see it as a 'victory'. And I'm not overly bothered about winning a game or losing, providing it's a good game. However, I do like rules that I play to reflect what happened in real life (as far as we know), hence my query in the first place.
In this case with the 'To the Strongest!' (TtS!) ruleset, it will be a 'difficult activation' to emplace or dig up the stakes for later use which should lead to some interesting tactical decisions for players as it no doubt was for the English commanders at Agincourt.
And with regard to Agincourt, I'm left wondering if it should be harder (in TtS! terms, a 'difficult' rather than a 'normal' activation) just to get the French nobles moving in the first place, but that is probably a new thread. ;)
Cheers Paul
Quote from: T13A on November 25, 2017, 11:18:56 AM
And with regard to Agincourt, I'm left wondering if it should be harder (in TtS! terms, a 'difficult' rather than a 'normal' activation) just to get the French nobles moving in the first place, but that is probably a new thread. ;)
Cheers Paul
Always up for a new thread on Agincourt :)
In terms of getting the French army moving, I suspect it had no intention of doing so until the Duke of Brabant and his contingent arrived, for political reasons. To have the English advance and start shooting surprised them and, given their chaotic command and control set up, they found it hard to respond quickly. So either a difficult activation or a certain amount of uninterupted action for the English before the French respond (depending perhaps on when you start your refight).
If you wanted to preserve the point of the stake could you not have a simple collar of wood (or metal) that would go over the point with a smaller inner diameter than the stake itself. The mallet would then bang on the collar with the archers working in pairs (one holding stake and collar and the other the mallet). I don't know of any references but it would be pretty simple to do.
Cheers
Richard
Later versions were indeed iron bound, though whether they used the collar idea, I don't know. The Agincourt ones, being improvised on the march, would just be plain wood though.