|
Rabhadh posted:Roughly what proportion of the French and English 100 years war armies were mounted? Is the answer basically "as many as possible" or "more as time went on"? Was there an idea ratio of mounted to unmounted that armies of this period strove for? And by mounted I don't just mean knights on destriers, I mean guys who are mounted for mobilities sake. Finally, does this apply to the rest of Europe or was the 100 years war a unique microcosm in regards to horse use? For the sake of mobility, it was generally favorable to have as many mounted troops as possible because it allowed forces to get around faster. In combat, however, it was quickly made apparent that having the bulk of an army fighting dismounted was very often favorable. One thing that the English really had going for them was that they learned early on that the armored, typically knightly cavalryman was not the be all and end all in combat. At the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, English cavalry suffered a massive and humiliating defeat at the hands of Robert the Bruce's pikemen, made up largely of well-trained commoners. Experiences in Scotland also gave the English a solid appreciation for well-trained and paid (but still relatively inexpensive) Welsh longbowmen. Additionally, the English went into the war with a fairly unified command structure that allowed them to use infantry, archers, cavalry, and, later, artillery in combination with one another to great effect. During this same time, the French were still heavily class-centered and favored the mounted knight, while lacking any real sense of cohesion. Various lords fought with or against each other as they saw fit and even when they were all on the same side, some would refuse to follow orders from the nominal commanders. Early on, they were also reluctant to embrace common soldiers. That's a large part of the reason why, at Crecy, a French army made up largely of armored cavalry suffered a massive defeat at the hands of a much smaller English army made up of longbowmen and dismounted men-at-arms/knights. Even when the French began to dismount, such as at Poitiers and Agincourt, they still found themselves unable to cope with large numbers of longbowmen raining arrows down at them from a distance because they lacked enough archers of their own. Ultimately, the English still lost the 100 Years War for a variety of factors but a lot of the above resulted in them dominating the field of battle for much of it, particularly at the start. Well-trained and highly disciplined commoners equipped as archers or pikemen could make mincemeat out of mounted knights in most situations, but cavalry charges could still be devastating at the right time or against untrained infantry (for example, archers or gunners could break the cohesion of pike formations, allowing cavalry to do their thing with relative ease). What you saw during the Hundred Years War also played out across much of Europe at the time. Well-trained Flemish militia fighting on foot delivered a decisive defeat to French cavalry at the Battle of Courtrai. The English themselves saw cavalry-based armies defeated quite a few times by Scottish pikemen and infantry. Other examples include the defeat of knights and mounted cavalry of the HRE by Swiss pikemen at the Battle Morgarten. I Demand Food fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Nov 14, 2013 |
#
¿
Nov 14, 2013 00:23
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 5, 2024 21:29 |
|
|
Rodrigo Diaz posted:Mobility was important to the English, you are absolutely correct. However, your notion on the French mentality is mistaken. Quite a few historians and writers argue that things didn't really start turning around for the French until the concept of France as a nation unified under one king really took root, even if that is a simplistic way of looking at things. Pressure on King Phillip by his nobles certainly forced him to act recklessly and enter battle without proper preparation, but chivalric ideals and feudal rivalries amongst the French knights certainly didn't do them any favors when the English proved that they were very capable of adapting their tactics based on experiences in past battles. Much of their eagerness to do battle at Crecy was because they thought that the cavalry charge would be decisive, particularly against a much smaller army that was mostly on foot. The French cavalry just kept throwing themselves against the English lines and kept being repulsed again and again. The fact that Edward had most of his knights dismount and fight on foot is also remarked upon in just about every account of the battle and the military value of the common Welsh longbowman is something that was firmly established in this and other battles in the early stages of the Hundred Years War. Rodrigo Diaz posted:Courtrai took place 44 years before Crecy, and infantry resisting cavalry was nothing new even then. It happened at Hastings in 1066, at Bremule in 1119, at Jaffa in 1192 at Bouvines in 1214, at Sterling in 1297, and in many other instances. The notion of the 'infantry revolution' is exceedingly short-sighted at best. While the defeats of Courtrai and Bannockburn did come as something of a surprise this is only applicable in a contemporary context, as during the mid-13th century infantry was not much used in a number of significant European battles (Muret, Tagliacozzo, Lewes, Dunbar) though their importance was still recognised in Louis IX's crusade. This is very true. What I thought was important to note was that the correct employment of longbows and pikes by well-trained common troops could play a decisive role in battles of the time, and that the English took advantage of this knowledge early on in the Hundred Years War.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 14, 2013 05:21
|
|
|
Grand Prize Winner posted:Come to think of it, what happened to relations between France and the Ottoman Empire after the revolution? Suddenly France is all different and they king's guillotined and meanwhile the Sultan is the autocratickest of the autocrats. Did they assume they were safe since all of Central Europe separated the two powers or did they start getting nervous? Empires of the Sand by Efraim and Inari Karsh is a very good book that deals with the Middle East from the 19th century to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. It opens with this topic and the situation was actually quite a bit more complex than that, as both the Ottoman leadership and the web of alliances between the European powers were also changing radically at the same time. This is vastly oversimplified, but should act as a good starting point for further research if you're interested: Selim III became Sultan in 1789, so he was just getting his reign established when the French Revolution kicked off. He was a bit of a modernist, so news of the revolution was actually welcomed by him for two reasons: 1) it meant that established structures in Europe were being drastically changed and this could lead to confusion, upheaval, possible war, and other things that would make Europe divided and unlikely to care very much about what the Ottoman Empire was up to, and 2) because it showed that the world was changing and that it would be important to make reforms and modernize the empire and its military. Then Napoleon came along and invaded Egypt, nominally an Ottoman territory while Selim made his Janissary Corps very angry with his drive to modernize things, so he was replaced as Sultan by Mustafa IV. That put a damper on things until the Ottoman's got into a scuffle with the British and signed an alliance with France under Napoleon against Russia. Napoleon then brokered separate deals with both Russia and the Ottoman Empire that only benefited France and which pissed off both the Tsar and the Sultan. Napoleon and the Tsar at one point even discussed partitioning the Ottoman Empire. That "betrayal", coupled with how France's conquest of mainland Europe brought the borders of its empire against those of the Ottoman Empire, particularly around the southern borders of Austria, caused Mustafa to pursue the Dardanelles Treaty with the British (in which the British agreed to protect the Ottoman Empire from French aggression and to pursue a Russo-Ottoman peace treaty on their behalf). Then Mustafa himself was deposed in favor of Mahmud II. Shortly afterwards, Napoleon approached Mahmud with plans for another secret, Franco-Ottoman alliance, with very similar terms to what had originally been promised in the agreement with Mustafa that Napoleon had broken. Mahmud essentially told the French off and sent his envoys to negotiate a peace directly with Russia. This resulted in the Treaty of of Bucharest in mid-1812, which transferred some provinces between them (mostly to the benefit of the Ottomans) and included promises for the Ottomans not to invade Serbia. About a month later, Napoleon invaded Russia. Mahmud was furious that his advisers had rushed to sign a treaty with Russia and rebuff the French, thinking that he had missed out on a massive opportunity to get even more concessions. He ended up dismissing his grand vizier and chopping off the heads of the envoys who had signed the Treaty of Bucharest, but very wisely stayed out of European politics for the rest of his reign. Under subsequent Sultans, the Ottoman Empire repeatedly found itself allied with or against Britain, Russia, and/or France right up until the Ottoman Empire fell apart and Britain and France drew arbitrary borders around various parts of it to the tune of Yakity Sax to give us the Middle East we all know and love today. I Demand Food fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Dec 3, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Dec 3, 2013 01:27
|
|
|
Trench_Rat posted:does anyone know more about this I found it on a list of captured german aircraft. I know it was not uncommon to accidentally land at an enemy airfield during ww2. But a full blown defection and so early in the war quote:Sunday 09 May 43 -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._1426_Flight_RAF#cite_note-rafmusju88-16 I Demand Food fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Feb 6, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Feb 6, 2014 01:40
|
|
|
Pornographic Memory posted:Was there any such thing as "reverse lend-lease"? Did the other Allies send anything to the Americans in return for their material aid, or was killing Germans payment enough? I understand lend-lease was basically supposed to be free poo poo for other countries in support of the war effort, but surely there'd be some things the Americans might be interested in getting their hands on other Allies could provide too. There was, but what the US supplied the other Allies via Lend-Lease typically far outweighed the monetary value of what they got back in return. It really was about supporting the war effort against Germany and Japan more than anything. The British supplied the US with ambulances, Canada supplied launches and de Havilland Mosquitos for ASW and photo-reconnaissance purposes, Australia and New Zealand supplied US forces in the Pacific with food and built some airports in the South Pacific for American use. I think Canada also picked up part of the tab for some joint construction projects that the US ended up using exclusively after the war and Brazil allowed the US to deploy a radio monitoring unit and conducted some spy sweeps on behalf of the US. As far as I know, the US got pretty much nothing back in return from the USSR, though.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 6, 2014 02:08
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 5, 2024 21:29 |
|
|
Man Whore posted:Here is something I've always wondered. You always hear about the horse archers of the Mongols and the Hun completely devastating other armies of the time because they have no good defense against it, but what would make a good defense against horse archers besides other horse archers? Heavily armored cavalry, massed archers, and crossbowmen were all effective counters to horse archers.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 3, 2014 06:10
|
|