The 6 Most Mismatched Battles Ever Won by Underdogs | Cracked.com

The 6 Most Mismatched Battles Ever Won by Underdogs | Cracked.com

Not mentioned here:

The most famous fight in this category was probably the Battle of Agincourt, made famous in Shakespeare's Henry V, in which a weary English army of 7500 men, fighting on French soil and on foot, defeated a much larger and fresher French army (some say as many as 36,000 men) which included an armored cavalry consisting of many of France's most notable lords.

The English not only won, but slaughtered the French in unbelievable numbers. In terms of body count, the English supposedly lost about 100 men in the battle; the French at least 4,000, possibly many more. The French lords, so confident of victory that they insisted on leading the charge, were killed or captured in vast numbers.

Per Wikipedia: "The French suffered heavily. Three dukes, at least eight counts, a viscount and an archbishop died, along with numerous other nobles. Of the great royal office holders, France lost her Constable, Admiral, Master of the Crossbowmen and prévôt of the marshals. The baillis of nine major northern towns were killed, often along with their sons, relatives and supporters. In the words of Juliet Barker, the battle "cut a great swath through the natural leaders of French society in Artois, Ponthieu, Normandy, Picardy." Estimates of the number of prisoners vary between 700 and 2,200, amongst them the Duke of Orléans (the famous poet Charles d'Orléans) and Jean Le Maingre (known as Boucicault) Marshal of France. Almost all these prisoners would have been nobles, as the less valuable prisoners were slaughtered."

What happened? The French would almost certainly have won if they could have advanced their lines enough to engage in hand-to-hand combat, but they found that nearly impossible. The battle was fought in a narrow, recently plowed field which was hemmed in between two thick woodlands. The straight-on French charge turned out to be target practice for the English archers, whose longbows simply rained death on the French and their horses. The field was also muddy, so the French lords had trouble maneuvering their horses, and even more trouble walking in heavy armor when their horses were felled. Many found themselves knee-deep in mud, unable to move. Those few who did reach the English lines found that their armor was actually an encumbrance. Meanwhile, many of the French in the rear guard couldn't get past the dead soldiers and horses in front of them, and many of the common soldiers simply fled when they saw their nobles in the vanguard being overwhelmed, and were informed that Henry V was slaughtering his French prisoners unless they were capable of being ransomed.

Per Wikipedia again: "It took several years' more campaigning, but Henry was eventually able to fulfill all his objectives. He was recognised by the French in the Treaty of Troyes (1420) as the regent and heir to the French throne. This was cemented by his marriage to Catherine of Valois, the daughter of King Charles VI."

In other words, the long-term impact of the battle was so great that Henry V became the heir to the throne of France!

He never lived to claim that throne. The French king Charles the Mad outlived Henry V by a few months. Henry VI was only nine months old at the time of Henry V's death, and by the time the infant came of age, France had reversed the tide in the Hundred Years War (Joan of Arc and all that jazz). Not that it mattered much. Henry VI couldn't even hang on to the throne of England, let alone France. He was less like his father, who was perhaps the greatest English king, than like his grandfather, the unstable French king known as Charles the Mad, the operative word there being "Mad." Henry VI went nutty as a fruitcake while still in his early 30s.

The narrative: "On hearing of the final loss of Bordeaux in August 1453, Henry slipped into a mental breakdown and became completely unaware of everything that was going on around him. This was to last for more than a year, and Henry failed even to respond to the birth of his own son and heir, who was christened Edward. Henry possibly inherited his illness from Charles VI of France, his maternal grandfather, who was struck by intermittent periods of insanity over the last thirty years of his life." ("Possibly"?? C'mon. There are very similar accounts of the behavior of gramps. The grandson was like a mirror image of his nutty French grandpa.)

Thus began The War of the Roses. You know the continuation of the story if you have been watching The White Queen.

By the way, many modern historians dispute the details of Shakespeare's account, which has become so deeply embedded in the English consciousness. The British won a great victory, to be sure, but perhaps the odds were not so overwhelming as has traditionally been accepted.