The Battle of Crecy changed everything.
This book tells the story of the most dramatic military
campaign of the medieval world. It has everything that a reader could want:
action, adventure, mystery and much more. As a story, it is thrilling. As an
exercise in exploring military history it is fascinating.
Before the Crecy campaign began, France was recognised to
have the greatest, most powerful and most modern army in all Christendom.
England was thought of as a prosperous but relatively backward kingdom lying
somewhere in the sea off the European coast. But six hours of bloodshed,
slaughter and heroism beyond imagining changed all that. The pride of France
was humbled, her army destroyed and her king made into a wounded fugitive
fleeing for his life through a foggy night.
This book explains to the general reader the reality of
warfare in the year 1346. It seeks to recreate in our minds the tactics used in
the Crecy Campaign and to put them into the context of the time. It shows what
the weapons were like and how they were used in action. It describes the
tactics of the different military units involved and how these would have
impacted on each other in battle. Crucially, it takes the reader inside the
minds of the commanders to explain what they did, why they did it and what they
hoped to achieve.
This is a gripping book that tells the thrilling story of a
campaign from long ago, bringing the thinking up to date and allowing the
modern reader to understand what it was really like to stand on a lonely
hillside in northern France alongside the King of England while the greatest
army in the world charged up the hill towards you. And to see with the King his
eldest son and heir knocked down by the enemy weapons. And when asked to send
help to the boy to hear King Edward refuse and say only:
“Let the boy win his spurs!”
from "The Battle of Crecy" by Rupert Matthews. Buy your copy HERE
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