It was noon when the fight was decided. It was mid-afternoon when the last of the pursuers had been called back into the English camp.
PART V
THE ASPECT OF THESE BATTLES
In closing the coupled and twin stories of Crécy and Poitiers it is not without advantage to describe the aspect which they would have presented to an onlooker of their time; and in doing this I must not only describe the general armament of Western European men in the middle of the fourteenth century, but that contrast between weapons and methods which gave the Plantagenets for more than a generation so permanent an advantage over their opponents.
You would have seen a force such as that of the Black Prince or of King John camped before a battle, a white town of tents crossing the fields, with here and there a vivid patch of colour where some great leader’s pavilion was of blue or red and gold. The billeting of men upon householders was a necessary feature of a long march, or of the occupation of a town. But when there was question of occupying a position, or when an army was too large to lodge under roof, it depended upon canvas. But it must be remembered that not the whole of a force by any means enjoyed that advantage; a large portion, especially in a considerable body, was often compelled to bivouac.
Further, the reader must represent to himself a heavier impediment of vehicles than a corresponding force would burden itself with to-day: a far heavier impediment than a quite modern army would think tolerable. There were no aids whatsoever to progress, save those which the armed body carried with it. No commandeering of horses upon any considerable scale; no mechanical traffic, of course; and, save under special circumstances where water carriage could relieve the congestion, no chances of carrying one’s booty (then a principal concern), one’s munitions, and one’s supplies, save in waggons.
On the other hand, the enormous supply of ammunition which modern missile warfare demands, and has demanded more or less for three hundred years, was absent. There was no reserve of food; an army lived not entirely off the country, for it always began with a reserve of provisions, but without any calculated reserve for a whole campaign, and necessarily in such times without any power of keeping essential nourishment for more than a few days.
Say that your fourteenth-century corps was more burdened upon the march by far, but by far less dependent upon its base than a modern force, and you have the truth.