Radio War Nerd EP #176 — Annibale's The Hundred Years War, Part II: Black Plague - Agincourt.
Guest: "Annibale"
Recorded: April 5, 2019
We continue the story of the Hundred Years War. In Part I, we brought the war up to the 1340s after England's crushing defeat of the French navy at Sluys, followed up by the English army's devastating invasion of the French interior — Edward III's chevauchée, or plunder & mass murder raids — culminating at the battle of Crécy. This episode, Annibale takes us from the devastating Black Plague, which hit France hardest, wiping out roughly half of the population in a matter of a few years, and its effects on the Hundred Years War. After the Plague settles down, England gets its war on France again, unleashing an even more devastating chevauchée on the French countryside in the 1350s & capture French King John II . . . Annibale takes us through the rise of Charles V, the 28-year truce, & the resumption of the war with Henry IV's invasion of France. We end Part II with Henry V's victory at Agincourt . . .
At 2:16:00 War Nerd & Ames discuss Max Blumenthal's new book controversy - Max will be our guest in the next episode . . . post-Russiagate lunacy . . .
Maps
*Black Plague map
*Battle of Poitiers + Capture of King John II. September 1356.
*Franco-Castillian naval raids on England in 1370s
* England's remaining French possessions in 1388, at start of truce
*Battle of Agincourt
Total time: 2:42:55
Comments (16)
“It is 12 february 1429, the bastard of Orleans Jean Dunois attempts a sortie trying to destroy a convoy of food that is destined to the besiegers, and he fails. And this is bad news. So bad that Jean Dunois starts thinking that he should surrender to the Burgundians side - it would be better than losing to the English. The same day, February 12 1429, 300 kilometers to the east in a fortress called Vaucouleurs, the fort commander is notified that someone wants to talk with him. She is an 18 year old girl, who says she is sent by God to free Orleans….”
I'm on my third time listening to this series. Catch more each time so dense and good!
I've been to the Broceliande, (well at least what is claimed to be), now called the Paimpont Forest. If it is the same location. It is indeed a really weird place, both in terms of the forest itself, and for the odd terrain, it fits perfectly for both legendary tales, and bandit hideouts.
Oh yeah! "Orm Il Rosso"! I was a big fan of tue film as a kid and I have been delighted to see the books published here few years ago. You're absolutely right about the similarities. Great books
For any Swedish speakers this is Frans G Bengtssons Röde Orm, "The Long Ships" in English I think. Great historical adventure novels about a young man who is captured in a cattle raid and winds up as a soldier in Al-Andalus before returning home and going east. Coming from Skåne seeing that some of the regionalist tendencies actually used to be somewhat serious is interesting.
As far as the Welsh archers being despised, I remember reading about them at Agincourt, descending on the French soldiery who were stuck in the mud and despatching them by a knife through the visor and then robbing them. I can't remember where I read it but if you cared about chivalry you might have looked a bit askance at them. That said, how chivalric could you be if you could contemplate a chevauchée. You couldn't really look down on anyone except as a snob. Arthur Conan Doyles books Sir Nigel and The White Company are set in this period. I can't recommend them as I have not read them. They are the kind of book my father would buy as a boy growing up in the 30's. The Wiki pages are interesting though and you can find excerpts online. I might read them as they are still in my late, fathers collection of books. Conan-Doyle is acknowledged to have done a lot or research though, from what I can see from reading excerpts online they appear to be romantic yarns. I know two people who were named after charcters in these books.
They weren't just despised by the French, but by their side too. Also, despite the name, chevauchées were mostly done by footsoldiers (it's difficult to pillage while on horse!) and also because of class - noblemen considered that dirty work fit only for the "rabble". "White Company" is absolutely not bad, as far as a novel set in the midldle ages it's way better than anything Walter Scott did.
A science fiction connection here is a book by Kim Stanley Robinson which suggests an alternative history that might have happened had the Mongols tactic been totally successfull and Europe had had been totally wiped out: <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Years-Rice-Salt-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0006511481/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2W65GL37KDESC&keywords=years+of+rice+and+salt&qid=1555416514&s=gateway&sprefix=years+of+rice%2Caps%2C169&sr=8-1" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.co.uk/Years-Rice-Salt-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0006511481/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2W65GL37KDESC&keywords=years+of+rice+and+salt&qid=1555416514&s=gateway&sprefix=years+of+rice%2Caps%2C169&sr=8-1</a>
Actually the point of divergence in Years of Rice and Salt is not much Mongol tactics, but Black Death being much more deadly and killing everyone in Europe. Best KSR book
This Bertrand du Guesclin guy sounds like a hell of a character. Can anyone recommend a good English language biography?
The best "popular" book on Du Guesclin is unfortunately this one, and is in French. <a href="https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B005OKQ1PO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B005OKQ1PO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1</a>
I don't really think you can reduce the question of size of the army or leadership to one or the other. To use some outdated jargon there's a unity of opposites here - without the superior population and territory France or China couldn't have eventually produced the leaders that let them turn the tables on England and Japan in the long run. Tolstoy might have been a little glib about it but I think he was more right than not, a good leader means nothing without those vast impersonal forces being available to mobilize.
The guy who founded Salesforce now owns Time Magazine. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/16/business/dealbook/time-magazine-salesforce-marc-benioff.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/16/business/dealbook/time-magazine-salesforce-marc-benioff.html</a>
Great episode, although I'm slightly disappointed you couldn't spend some time on Owain Glyndwr's rebellion.
I'm thinking about an episode on the Wars of the Roses and its origins, so the rebellions around the Richard II era would be included. Owain Glyndwr is a great topic indeed
Gotta love the Black Death, Y. pestis one of the all time greatest pathogens, and everybody loves wearing an outfit with a curved beak filled with rose petals and anti-miasma perfumed spices.