Ride light and shoot straight: The Battle of Agincourt and the underdog's triumph

Using a simpler and lighter weapon to defeat a stronger and superior weapon is something we saw in the Battle of Karnal between Nadir Shah and Muhammad Shah. Similar tactics were adopted in other parts of the world as well.

One such example was the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, which was one of the major battles of the Hundred Years' War between England and France.

Crossing the English Channel with around 5,000 troops, King Henry V of England came prepared for battle. Since his army had to travel by ship, they carried relatively light weapons. Their primary weapon was the longbow, a weapon commonly used by hunters for centuries.

There was another reason for choosing such a simple weapon. Most English soldiers were ordinary farmers with little formal military training beyond drawing a bow and shooting arrows. The heavily armoured cavalry and noble warriors— otherwise vital elements in medieval warfare—were relatively few in number.

The French army, by contrast, arrived with nearly 30,000 troops. Much like in the era of the Crusades, they consisted largely of heavily armoured noble warriors and skilled cavalrymen. Alongside them stood a long line of archers armed with crossbows, weapons considered superior to the longbow in range and accuracy.

Henry chose the rain-soaked, muddy battlefield of Agincourt as his camp. It was on this soft, slippery ground that the French army launched its attack. As the charging French horses got bogged down in the mud, the English troops surged forward and, when the enemy came within about 300 metres, unleashed a deadly rain of arrows.

From behind the cavalry, French soldiers fired accurately with their crossbows, but the longbow proved superior. The reason was simple: loading, cocking, and firing a crossbow took much more time. By the time it took a crossbowman to fire one bolt, a longbowman could release four or five arrows. Longbowmen could even shoot while moving forward, which was nearly impossible with a crossbow.

In short, the English won with surprising ease. After accepting defeat, King Charles VI secured peace by giving his daughter, Catherine of Valois, in marriage to the young and unmarried Henry V.

This battle, and the events leading to it, later became the subject of William Shakespeare’s famous historical play, Henry V.