The Handy Military History Answer Book. Samuel Willard Crompton

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СКАЧАТЬ Bruce was directing and assembling a group of his pikemen when an English noble, just 500 yards away, began to charge. Sir Henry de Bohun espied the crown atop the Bruce’s helmet and hoping to score a great coup, he charged alone on horseback. Even though the Bruce could have fled to a cover of trees, to do so would be to lose face in front of hundreds of his men. Therefore, though he was mounted on a pony rather than a real war horse, the Bruce waited.

      As Sir Henry de Bohun came close, he leveled his lance and charged straight for the Scottish king, but the Bruce was a master at guerrilla tactics; he evaded the lance and, allowing the Englishman’s horse to continue its charge, he came from behind and split de Bohun’s head with his axe. Though the Scots chastised their king for exposing himself to such danger, they quietly applauded his bravery. The battle itself, however, did not take place until the following morning.

      What were the results of Bannockburn?

      Six thousand English troops were killed and wounded, and the list of men taken prisoner was enough to give any loyal Englishman pains. One earl, forty-two barons and bannerets, and scores of knights were taken prisoner.

      King Edward II (ruled 1307–1327) was almost captured, but he escaped to fight another day. His ambitions remained strong, but the English attempt to take over Scotland had ground to a halt. Further battles would be fought, and the English would win their share of them, but it would never again be close to annexing Scotland. Between them, William Wallace and Robert the Bruce had accomplished what seemed impossible: winning complete political independence.

      How did Switzerland win its independence from Austria?

      The Battle of Morgarten, fought in November 1315, was one of the decisive battles toward the end of Swiss independence. Several thousand Austrians invaded Shwyz, one of the federations of the Swiss republic, and found perhaps 5,000 men of Schwyz opposing them. In the battle, fought near the mountain pass of Morgarten, the Swiss proved their superiority in mountain fighting. Using spears made of wood, the Swiss killed nearly 1,500 Austrians (many others drowned in Lake Ageri). As the Austrians retreated, it became plain that Switzerland was on its way to political independence.

      Did the Dutch, too, fight for their independence?

      They did not need to. Holland and the other Dutch provinces had won their independence from the Holy Roman Empire without any battles, and by the early fourteenth century those provinces were on the way to establishing themselves as solid political units. The major reason no one—such as England or France—claimed Holland is that there seemed to be nothing much of value there. No incentive existed for any of the great powers to invade Holland, and the area slowly evolved in a direction that involved fishing, farming, and a growing maritime presence.

      What happened to the crusading movement?

      It died in the half century following the year 1204. Three more crusades were formed, but very little was accomplished. Something had gone out of the soul of the crusading movement, and it could not be regained.

      Christian Europeans had never been shy about fighting each other, but the number of conflicts and wars began to increase as the crusades wound down. One of the most persistent of conflicts was the series of border wars between England and Scotland. The cause of these border wars was the desire of England—its noble class especially—to add Scotland to the Kingdom of England.

      Where else were “border wars” being fought?

      They took place throughout much of Europe during the fourteenth century. It almost seems as if the common people realized that the mounted knights were vulnerable for the first time in almost two centuries. Border skirmishes and battles took place in Belgium, in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Lithuania. A common theme was that foot soldiers employed new methods to bring down mounted knights and that they often succeeded.

THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR

      Can any people, or set of peoples, really sustain the motivation to fight each other for a century?

      No. There have to be breaks in the action and time for people to forget—or at least put from their minds—the mayhem and destruction of the last set of episodes. But England and France, which had long experienced uneasy relations, did go to war in 1334, and the conflict lasted—off and on—for more than one hundred years.

      What was the proximate cause of the Hundred Years’ War?

      King Edward III of England (ruled 1327–1377) claimed the throne of France because of the Salic Law, which declared that only male descendants and relatives could sit on the throne of Charlemagne. King Philip IV of France, best known as Philip the Fair, naturally disagreed, and the two kingdoms went to war in 1334. Neither side expected anything like what happened after that.

      When the war began, France had a large advantage in population—about three to one—and resources. England, by contrast, had the better fleet and could therefore control the English Channel, deciding when and where to strike. The biggest surprises were in the area of military technology, however.

      When did gunpowder first arrive in Christian Europe?

      The precise date is unknown, but by the early fourteenth century some Europeans had experimented with gunpowder, and by about 1430, the first cannon were being forged. These were clumsy, heavy things, with almost no capacity for mobility; the sheer noise they created, however, could frighten a foe half to death. King Edward III of England brought a handful of ugly looking cannon to the Siege of Calais in 1336, but they did not succeed in battering down the walls. Cannon would have to wait nearly another century before becoming the “destroyers of castles.” The longbow, on the other hand, was primed and ready.

      The Welsh pioneered the longbow, and the English adapted this new technology during the reign of King Edward I. As long as the archer was tall, the longbow was made of yew, an especially supple wood. Through long practice, a long bowman could release six arrows per minute, and the best of these marksmen were able to pierce the separation points between a knight’s armor. The longbow was costly to make and the practice sessions time consuming, but the weapon itself was extraordinarily light, and its ease of transportation made it the best weapon of the Hundred Years’ War.

      When was the longbow first used?

      It had been in use in the British Isles for many years, but the longbow first appeared in a European battlefield at Crecy in 1346. King Edward III invaded France and was set upon by a French force that outnumbered his own. In the Battle of Crecy, the English knights beat the French ones by a narrow margin, but it was the English commoners, using the longbow, who really won the day. Raining down arrows on their opponents, the longbow men then charged, and often caught, French knights either flat-footed or on their backs (because their horses had thrown them off). Captured knights were held for ransom, meaning that the English won a victory that was both tactical and monetary.

      Edward III continued to the coast of what is now Belgium and besieged the city of Calais. He captured the city after a long siege and then returned to England. As far as Edward was concerned, the war was won. He did not realize that things were just beginning to warm up.

      Why did the French fail to change their own tactics?

      It is easy to poke fun at the French, who continued to believe that the armored knights would, eventually, simply ride over the peasants carrying longbows. It is important to remember that people are—in general—resistant to change and continue to believe that the method which worked in the past will do so again. The French, therefore, kept making excuses to themselves, blaming the rain on the day before the Battle of Crecy and the СКАЧАТЬ