The Hundred Years War - Desmond Seward [24]
The English who, because of the dark, did not realize the fearful casualties which they had inflicted, slept at their positions, so relieved at having escaped annihilation that they prayed to God in thanksgiving. They had lost less than a hundred men themselves. Next morning they awoke in such thick fog ‘that a man might not see the breadth of an acre of land from him’. Edward forbade any pursuit. He sent out a scouting force, 500 men-at-arms and 2,000 archers under the Earl of Northampton, who soon found themselves facing some local militia and then a force of Norman knights who had arrived too late. Northampton’s men quickly routed these last opponents, killing many. The King now saw the extent of his victory and ordered heralds to count the slain. They identified the bodies of more than 1,500 lords and knights, among them the Duke of Lorraine and the Counts of Alençon, Auxerre, Blamont, Blois, Flanders, Forez, Grandpré, Harcourt, Saint-Pol, Salm and Sancerre. Froissart exaggerates the number of ‘common people’ on the French side who died, but it was certainly well over 10,000.
Edward had won one of the great victories of Western history. Until Crécy the English were very little thought of as soldiers, while the French were considered the best in Europe. Tactically and technologically the battle amounted to a military revolution, a triumph of fire-power over armour. The King of England became the most celebrated commander in Christendom.
However, Edward was in no position to exploit his victory. Although Philip’s army had been destroyed, he dared not march on Paris with his tired troops. On 30 August he set off for the coast to capture a port. He chose Calais, which he reached on 4 September. It was only a few miles from the Flemish border and was the nearest port to England. Soon English ships arrived with reinforcements and took home the wounded as well as prisoners and plunder. The King had expected to take the town without much trouble but found that it was stronger than he had thought—surrounded by sand dunes and marshes on which it was impossible to erect siege engines. Deep dykes made mining out of the question. Moreover it had a strong garrison commanded by a gallant Burgundian knight, Jean de Vienne, who was determined to hold out until winter came and the English would be forced to withdraw. But Edward was equally determined, and built wooden huts to house his troops during the winter. Jean le Bel says that he ‘set the houses like streets and covered them with reed and broom, so that it was like a little town’; it even had market days which did a thriving trade. Many Englishmen died from disease, but the rest kept on grimly with the siege throughout the winter, devastating the country for thirty miles around. In the spring Edward brought over more reinforcements, in case Philip should try to relieve the town. Parliament was co-operative, supplying the necessary funds, and by mid-summer 1347 the English had over 30,000 men outside Calais. All this represents a remarkable administrative achievement—not only the new troops but also vast quantities of food to feed them had to be ferried across the Channel.
King Edward’s real weapon was a ruthless blockade by his ships, calculating that ‘hunger, which enters closed doors, could and should conquer the pride of the besieged’ according to the Oxfordshire chronicler Geoffrey le Baker. Palisades running out into the sea prevented small boats from bringing supplies along the shore to the beleaguered garrison. A large English fleet was always waiting outside the harbour, and they built a wooden tower with catapults to destroy any vessel which might possibly slip through. The citizens expelled 500 of their poor to save food, but by the spring supplies were running out; they decided that they would have no option other than to surrender if Philip did not relieve them by August.
One reason why Edward was able to find so many troops was the recent elimination of any danger from Scotland