THE TERRAIN

The defensive position taken up by Edward, the Black Prince, upon Sunday the 18th of September 1356, and used by him in the decisive action of the following day, is composed of very simple elements; which are essentially a shallow dip (about thirty feet only in depth), bounded by two slight parallel slopes, the one of which the Anglo-Gascon force held against the advance of the King of France’s cosmopolitan troops from the other.

We can include all the business of that Monday’s battle in a parallelogram lying true to the points of the compass, and measuring three miles and six furlongs from north to south, by exactly two and a half miles from east to west; while the actual fighting is confined to an inner parallelogram no more than two thousand yards from east to west, by three thousand from north to south. The first of these areas is that given upon the coloured map which forms the frontispiece of this little book. The second is marked by a black frame within that coloured map, the main features of which are reproduced in line upon a larger scale on the page opposite this.

I have said that the essentials of the Black Prince’s defensive plan were:

(1) A prepared defensive position, which it might or might not be necessary to hold, coupled with

(2) an obstacle, the Miosson River, which (when he should retreat) he could count upon to check pursuit; especially as its little valley was (a) fairly deeply cut, (b) encumbered by wood, and (c) passable for troops only at the bridge of Nouaille, which he was free to cut when it had served him, and at a somewhat hidden ford which I will later describe.

I must here interpose the comment that the bridge of Nouaille, being of stone, would not have been destroyable during a very active and pressed retreat under the conditions of those times; that is, without the use of high explosives. But it must be remembered that such a narrow passage would in any case check the pursuit, that half an hour’s work would suffice to make a breach in the roadway, and perhaps to get rid of the keystones, that a few planks thrown over the gap so formed would be enough to permit archers defending the rear to cross over, that these planks could then be immediately withdrawn, and that the crush of a hurried pursuit, which would certainly be of heavily armed and mounted knights, would be badly stopped by a gap of the kind. I therefore take it for granted that the bridge of Nouaille was a capital point in Edward’s plan.

The line along which the Black Prince threw up entrenchments was the head of the slight slope upon the Nouaille or eastern side of the depression I have mentioned. It ran from the farm Maupertuis (now called La Cardinerie) to the site of those out-buildings which surround the modern steadings of Les Bordes, and to-day bear the name of La Dolerie. The length of that line was, almost to a foot, one thousand English yards, and it will easily be perceived that even with his small force only a portion of his men were necessary to hold it. Its strength and weakness I shall discuss in a moment. This line faces not quite due west, indeed nearly twenty degrees north of west. Its distance as the crow flies from the Watergate of Poitiers is just under seven kilometres, or, as nearly as possible, four miles and six hundred and fifty English yards. While its bearings from the town of Poitiers, or the central part thereof, is a trifle south of due south-east.

The line thus taken up, and the depression in front of it, are both singularly straight, and the slope before the entrenchments, like its counterpart opposite, is regular, increasing in depth as the depression proceeds down towards the Miosson, which, at this point, makes a bend upward to meet, as it were, the little valley. A trifle to the south of the centre of the line there is a break in the uniformity of the ridge, which comes in the shape of a little dip now occupied by some tile-works; and on the further, or French, side a corresponding and rather larger cleft faces it; so that the whole depression has the shape of a long cross with short arms rather nearer its base than its summit. Just at the end of the depression, before the ground sinks abruptly down to the river, the soil is marshy.

Leading towards this position from Poitiers there was and is but one road, a winding country lane, now in good repair, but until modern times of a poor surface, and never forming one of the great high roads. The importance of this unique road will be seen in a moment.

There had once existed, five hundred yards from the right of the Black Prince’s entrenched line, a Roman road, the traces of which can still be discovered at various parts of its course, but which, even by the time of Poitiers, had disappeared as a passable way. The only approach remaining, as I have said, was that irregular lane which formed the connection between Poitiers and Nouaille.

Now in most terrains where feudal cavalry was concerned, the existence or non-existence of a road, and its character, would be of little moment in the immediate neighbourhood of the action: for though a feudal army depended (as all armies always must) upon roads for its strategics, it was almost independent of them in its tactics upon those open fields which were characteristic of mediaeval agriculture. The mounted and armoured men deployed and charged across the stubble. Those who have read the essay upon the Terrain of Crecy, which preceded this in the present series, will appreciate that the absence of a road uniting the English and French positions in that battle was of no significance to the result.

But in the particular case of Poitiers this road, and a certain cart-track leading off it, must be carefully noted, because between them they determine all that happened; and the reason of this is that the front of the English position was covered with vines.

The French method of cultivating the vine, and the condition of that cultivation in the middle of September (in all but a quite exceptionally early year so far north as Poitou), makes of a vineyard the most complete natural obstacle conceivable against the use of cavalry, and at the same time a most formidable entanglement to the advance of infantry, and a tolerable cover for missile weapons at short range.

The vine is cultivated in France upon short stakes of varying height with varying districts, but usually in this neighbourhood somewhat over four feet above the ground; that is, covering most of a man’s figure, even as he would stand to arms with a long-bow, yet affording space above for the discharge of the weapon. These stakes are set at such distances apart as allow ordered and careful movement between them, but close enough together to break and interfere with a pressed advance: their distances being determined by the fulness of the plant before the grapes are gathered, a harvest which falls in that region somewhat later than the date of the action.

Wherever a belt of vineyard is found, cultivated after this fashion, the public ways through it are the only opportunities for advance; for land is so valuable under the grape that various allotments or properties are cultivated to their outermost limit. The vineyards (which have now disappeared, but which then stood upon the battlefield) could only be pierced by the roads I have mentioned.

This line, then, already well protected by the vineyards, was further strengthened by the presence of a hedge which bounded them and ran along their eastern edge upon the flat land above the depression.

I have mentioned a cart-track, which branched off on the main lane, and which is marked upon my map with the letters “A-A.” It formed, alongside with the lane, a second approach through the English line, and it must be noticed that, like the main lane, a portion of it, where it breasted the slope, was sunk in those times below the level of the land on either side.

The first thought that will strike the modern student of such a position is that a larger force, such as the one commanded by the King of France, should have been able easily to turn the defensive upon its right.

Now, first, a feudal army rarely manoeuvred. For that matter, the situation was such that if John had avoided a fight altogether, and had merely marched down the great south-western road to block Prince Edward’s retreat, the move would have had a more complete effect than winning a pitched battle. The reader has also heard how the Black Prince’s sense of his peril was such that he had been prepared to treat upon any but the most shameful terms. It is evident, therefore, that if the French fought at all it was because they wanted to fight, and that they approached the conflict in the spirit (which was that of all their time) disdainful of manoeuvring and bound in honour to a frontal attack. A modern force as superior in numbers as was John’s to the Black Prince’s would have “held” the front of the defensive with one portion of its effectives, while another portion marched round that defensive’s right flank. But it is impossible to establish a comparison between developed tactics and the absolutely simple plan of feudal warfare. It is equally impossible to compare a modern force with a feudal force of that date. It had not the unity of command and the elasticity of organisation which are necessary to divided and synchronous action. It had no method of attack but to push forward successive bodies of men in the hope that the weight of the column would tell.

Secondly, Edward defended that right flank from attack by establishing there his park of waggons.

None the less, the Black Prince could not fail to see the obvious danger of the open right upon the plateau beyond the Roman road; even in the absence of any manoeuvring, the mere superior length of the French line might suffice to envelop him there. It was presumably upon this account that he stationed a small body of horse upon that slightly higher piece of land, five hundred yards behind Maupertuis and a little to the right of it, which is now the site of the railway station; and this mounted force which he kept in reserve was to prove an excellent point of observation during the battle. It was the view over towards the French position obtained from it which led, as will be seen in the next section, to the flank charge of the Captal de Buch.

There remains to be considered such environments of the position as would affect the results of the battle. I have already spoken of the obstacle of the Miosson, of Nouaille, of the passages of the river, and of the woods which would further check a pursuit if the pressure following upon a partial defeat, or upon a determination to retire without accepting action, should prove serious. I must now speak of these in a little more detail.

The depression, which was the main feature of the battlefield, is carved like its fellows out of a general and very level plateau of a height some four hundred to four hundred and fifty feet above the sea. This formation is so even that all the higher rolls of the land are within ten or twenty feet of the same height. They are, further, about one hundred feet, or a little more, higher than the water level of the local streams. This tableland, and particularly the ravine of the Miosson, nourishes a number of woods. One such wood, not more than a mile long by perhaps a quarter broad, covers Nouaille, and intervenes between that town and the battlefield. On the other side of the Miosson there is a continuous belt of wood five miles long, with only one gap through it, which gap is used by the road leading from Nouaille to Roches and to the great south-western road to Bordeaux.

In other words, the Black Prince had prepared his position just in front of a screen of further defensible woodland.

I have mentioned one last element in the tactical situation of which I have spoken, and which needs careful consideration.

Over and above the passage of the Miosson by a regular bridge and a proper road at Nouaille, the water is fordable in ordinary weather at a spot corresponding to the gap between the woods, and called “Man’s Ford” or “Le Gue d’Homme.” Now, of the several accounts of the action, one, the Latin chronicler Baker, mentions the ford, while another, the rhymed French story of the Chandos Herald, speaks of Edward’s having begun to retire, and of part of his forces having already crossed the river before contact took place. I will deal later with this version; but in connection with the ford and whether Edward either did or intended to cross by it, it is worthy of remark that the only suggestion of his actually having crossed it, and of his intention to do so in any case, is to be found in the rhymed chronicle of the Chandos Herald; and the question arises what reliance should be placed on that document?

It is evident on the face of it that the detail of the retreat was not invented. Everyone is agreed that the rhymed chronicle of the Chandos Herald does not carry the same authority as prose contemporary work. It is not meant to. It is a literary effort rather than a record. But there would be no reason for inventing such a point as the beginning of a retreat before an action not a very glorious or dramatic proceeding and the mere mention of such a local feature as the ford in Baker is clear proof that what we can put together from the two accounts is based upon an historical event and the memory of witnesses.

On the other hand, the road proper ran through Nouaille, and when you are cumbered with a number of heavy-wheeled vehicles, to avoid a road and a regular bridge and to take a bye-track across fields down a steep bank and through water would seem a very singular proceeding. Further, this track would lose all the advantages which the wood of Nouaille gave against pursuit, and, finally, would mean the use of a passage that could not be cut, rather than one that could.

Again, we know that the Black Prince when he was preparing the position on Sunday morning, covered its left flank, exactly as his father had done at Crecy ten years before, with what the Tudors called a “leaguer,” or park of waggons.

Further, we have a discrepancy between the story of this retreat by the ford and the known order of battle arranged the day before. In that order of battle he put in the first line, just behind his archers, who lined the hedge bounding the vineyards, a group of men-at-arms under Warwick and Oxford. He himself commanded the body just behind these, and the third or rearmost line was under the command of Salisbury and Suffolk.

How are these contemporary and yet contradictory accounts to be reconciled? What was the real meaning of movement on the ford?

I beg the reader to pay a very particular attention to the mechanical detail which I am here examining, because it is by criticism such as this that the truth is established in military history between vague and apparently inconsistent accounts.

If you are in command of a force such as that indicated upon the following plan, in which A and B together form your front line, C your second, and D your third, all three facing in the direction of the arrow, and expecting an attack from that direction; and if, after having drawn up your men so, you decide there is to be no attack, and determine to retreat in the direction of X, your most natural plan will be to file off down the line towards X, first with your column D, to be followed by your column C, with A and B bringing up the rear. And this would be all the more consonant with your position, from the fact that the very men A and B, whom you had picked out as best suited to take the first shock of an action, had an action occurred, would also in the retreat form your rearguard, and be ready to fight pursuers should a pursuit develop and press you. That is quite clear.

Now, if, for reasons of internal organisation or what not, you desired to keep your vanguard still your vanguard in retreat, as it was on the field, your middle body still your middle body on the march, and what was your rearguard on the field still your rearguard in the long column whereby you would leave that field, the manoeuvre by which you would maintain this order would be filing off by the left; that is, ordering A to form fours and turn from a line into a column, facing towards the point E, and, having done so, to march off in the direction of X. You would order B to act in the same fashion next. When A and B had got clear of you and had reached, say, F, you would make C form fours and follow after; and when C had marched away so far as to leave things clear for D, the last remaining line, you would make D in its turn form fours and close up the column.

Now, suppose the Black Prince had been certain on that Monday morning that there would be no attack, nor even any pursuit. Suppose that he were so absolutely certain as to let him dispense with a rearguard then he might have drawn off in the second of the two fashions I have mentioned. Warwick and Oxford (A and B) would have gone first, C (the Black Prince, in the centre) would have gone next, and Salisbury, D, would have closed the line of the retreat. This would have been the slowest method he could have chosen for getting off the field, it would have had no local tactical advantage whatsoever, and to adopt such a method in a hurried departure at dawn from the neighbourhood of a larger force with whom one had been treating for capitulation the day before, would be a singular waste of time in any case. But, at any rate, it would be physically possible.

What is quite impossible is that such a conversion and retirement should have been attempted; for we know that a strong rearguard was left, and held the entrenchments continuously.

To leave the field in the second fashion I have described is mathematically equivalent to breaking up your rearguard and ceasing to maintain it for the covering of your retreat. It is possible only if you do not intend to have a rearguard at all to cover your retirement, because you think you do not need it. As a fact, we know that all during the movement, whatever it was, a great body of troops remained on the field not moving, and watching the direction from which the French might attack. So even if there was a beginning of retirement, a strong rearguard was maintained to cover that movement. We further know that the Black Prince and the man who may be called chief of his staff, Chandos, planned to keep that very strong force in position in any case, until the retirement (if retirement it were) was completed; and we further know that the fight began with a very stout and completely successful resistance by what must have been a large body posted along the ridge, and what even the one account which speaks of the retirement describes as the bulk of the army.

To believe, then, that Warwick filed off by the left, followed by the vehicles, and then by the main command under the Prince, and that all this larger part of the army, including its wheeled vehicles, had got across the ford before contact took place and an action developed, is impossible. It is not only opposed to any sound judgment, it is mathematically impossible. It also conflicts with the use of a park of vehicles to defend the left of the entrenched line, and with the natural use of the line of retreat by Nouaille. I can only conclude that what really happened was something of this sort:

Edward intended to retreat if he were left unmolested. He intended to retreat through Nouaille and by its bridge, but for safety and to disencumber the road he sent the more valuable of the loot-waggons by the short cut over the ford.

The Prince had got the bulk of his force standing on the entrenched position upon that Monday morning, and bidden it wait and see whether the enemy would attempt to force them or no. As there was no sign of the enemy’s approach from the northwest, and as he was not even watched by any scout of the enemy’s, he next put Salisbury in command of the main force along the hedge, put Warwick and Oxford at the head of a strong escort for leading off the more valuable of the booty which would presumably be in few waggons and began to get these waggons away down the hill towards the ford. They would thus be taking a short cut to join the road between Nouaille and Roches later on, and they would relieve the congestion upon the main road of retreat through Nouaille. It is possible that the Black Prince oversaw this operation himself upon the dawn of that day, involving, as it did, the negotiation of a steep bank with cumbersome vehicles, and those vehicles carrying the more precious and portable loot of his raid. This would give rise to the memory of his having crossed the stream. But, meanwhile, the mass of army was still standing where it was posted, prepared for retreat on the bridge of Nouaille if it were not molested, or for action if it were. Just as this minor detachment of the more valuable vehicles, with its escort, had got across the water, messengers told Edward that there were signs of a French advance. He at once came back, countermanded all provisional orders for the retirement, and recalled the escort, save perhaps some small party to watch the waggons which had got beyond the river. Thus, returning immediately, Edward was ready to instruct and fight the action in the fashion described in all the other accounts.

This, I think, is the rational reconciliation of several stories which are only in apparent contradiction, and which are rather confusing than antagonistic.