Agincourt as a counterinsurgency fight?

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Monday, October 26, 2009 - 1:41 PM Share

Huh? This article in yesterday's New York Times felt to me like editing pushed it off the tracks. The new quantitative approach to military history, it says,

has drastically changed views on everything from Roman battles with Germanic tribes, to Napoleon's disastrous occupation of Spain, to the Tet offensive in the Vietnam War. But the most telling gauge of the respect being given to the new historians and their penchant for tearing down established wisdom is that it has now become almost routine for American commanders to call on them for advice on strategy and tactics in Afghanistan, Iraq and other present-day conflicts.
The most influential example is the "Counterinsurgency Field Manual" adopted in 2006 by the United States Army and Marines and smack in the middle of the debate over whether to increase troop levels in Afghanistan.

But then there is a connection between Agincourt (the ostensible subject of the article) and COIN: Longbows were very important at 594 years ago (almost exactly) at Agincourt, and AH-64 Longbows have played a significant role in Iraq and Afghanistan! Even so, I don't think that means gentlemen now abed in England will think themselves accursed they didn't read FM 3-24, the Army/Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual.

Depiction of the Battle of Crécy during the 100 Years' War, from an illustrated manuscript of Jean Froissart's "Chronicles"

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JPWREL

3:44 PM ET

October 26, 2009

Stingers in reverse?

It will be interesting to see what happens when the Taliban acquire sufficient numbers of a shoulder fired antiaircraft missile like an improved version of the SA-7. Likely it would mean little to our tactical fixed wing support since their countermeasures are well developed but rotary tactical and logistical assets could be severely challenged. Perhaps if pushed far enough the Iranians may do their own version of a ‘Stinger deployment’ as we did versus the Soviets in Afghanistan in ht 80’s?

TYRTAIOS

3:51 PM ET

October 26, 2009

St. Crispen's Day

At Agincourt, Henry V attacked from a strong defensive position, and by moving his army foward lured the French into an attack on his massed longbowmen, whom Henry had spent easily two years preparing prior to departing England.

The NYT might have taken a look at the battlefield of Agincourt: wedge shaped, and freshly ploughed, having been turned into a thick mud from rains the night before, hampering the French heavy advance by mounted knights.

Interestingly, the English bowman ran out of arrows; threw down their bows; climbed over the piles of fallen French knights and lifting their visors stabbing them in the eye or smashed their skulls with clubs.

Who comes-up this stuff? I fail to see any connection to FM 3-24, nor can I envision any AH-64 pilots dismounting and locking with the enemy in hand-to-hand combat? : |

DIPLOMATICHSTORIAN

4:48 PM ET

October 26, 2009

You Might Try Actually Reading the Article in Question

The Times piece is about the "new" military history. Quantitative historians are calling into dispute the numerical discrepancy between forces at Agincourt. As examples of the influence of the "new" military history, the article cites (among other things) FM 3-24. BTW, the Times piece has a nice accompanying graphic of the battlefield -- which is why I'm fairly sure you haven't read the piece in question. The Times is not comparing Agincourt to COIN -- though that could be inferred by someone who only read Ricks' piece and not the article in question.

My kvetch about the article is that, apart from the contretemps over Agincourt, much of the piece really isn't news per se. The "new" military history has been practiced for about two decades now. My cohort in the PhD program at A&M (graduating in mid- to late-90's) was filled with students who favored this approach (though to be sure we still had our share of conventional "guns and trumpets" types). OSU prof Mark Grimsley has been writing on this issue for well over a decade.

TYRTAIOS

6:03 PM ET

October 26, 2009

Well DiplomaticHstorian, I've

Well DiplomaticHstorian, I've certainly been taken to the woodshed for an old fashioned whipping. :)

The graphic I see isn't representational of the layout of Agincourt field that day, only the simplistic order of battle indicated. That was a stretch to assume I hadn't read the full article based on your narrow information on the actual terrain - "it was wedge shaped!"

PRAHAPARTIZAN

1:50 AM ET

October 27, 2009

For A Good Reason

Your comment raised a good point. I went back to look at that picture and discovered in the fine print at the bottom of the article that it actually showed the Battle of Crecy, not Agincourt. As such, the depiction might be more true to form. Crecy always brings to mind the image of the blind King John of Bohemia storming into battle with riding retainers around him attached to his horse to guide it while he flailed away with his morning-star as they tried to avoid its spiked balls.

ALEX_LERMAN

6:31 PM ET

October 26, 2009

NYT missed the point

I agree, Diplomat - there's little new in the NYT Agincourt story, and they miss the central point of the battle: heavy armored cavalry, i.e. the M1 Abrams tanks of the day, were destroyed by saxon "rabble" armed with bows and knives.

The supremacy of the european feudal system was based on the power of armed soldiers over peasants. Agincourt turned that upside down - and for the English, the idea that the lowly saxon rabble were Henry V's fighting backbone, was one beginning of an English rather than Norman identity.

TYRTAIOS

7:13 PM ET

October 26, 2009

I would recommend you review

I would recommend you review the Battle of Patay, and the heavy loss of English archers due to their trying to duplicate what they had done at Agincourt and at Crecy earlier, before stating the long bow turned things upside down.

In addition, the long bow may have been a simple weapon to produce, but it was far from easy to "qualify" a large body of archers who were proficient.

In addition, the the English victory at Agincourt couldn't be sustained by Harry, thus was only a grand tactical victory not a strategic one.

DRLAKE777

3:55 PM ET

October 26, 2009

Interesting.

The article suggests that Henry was engaged in counter-insurgency, though that does seem a stretch. That said, couldn't you find a picture of the battle of Agincourt?

GRANT

1:01 AM ET

October 27, 2009

He wasn't engaged in one but

He wasn't engaged in one but several of the more important civilian aspects of his actions were applicable to a counterinsurgency, even if the article does seem to go a bit far. However notes such as courting the rich merchants of a city or treating the local population well should really be part of any officers training, how exactly do they expect to hold a city if every meaningful group despises them?

PRAHAPARTIZAN

7:31 PM ET

October 26, 2009

Concentrate on the Generalship Involved

The NYT's author might have accomplished more if they had focused on the generalship displayed by the two forces. Henry, realizing that he could not avoid combat, placed his forces in broken ground bounded by wooded terrain on either flank and established field fortifications in front of his main battle line to break up the French attack. The French, confident of victory and their numerical superiority, lined up essentially one-to-one against their English foes, admittedly in more depth. Of course crossing a fire-swept field which was to be turned into a quagmire dressed in plate armor and carrying heavy weapons would soon mean the French men-at-arms would learn "depth" applied more to their graves than the reinforcements. Henry chose his ground and deployment well. The French merely cooperated with their slaughter by doing the expected thing. They never did consider a flanking maneuver - possible with their cavalry superiority - to take Henry's forces from behind. Stupid generalship was the key element creating the Agincourt victory. We need to avoid the same.