Essay
Agincourt source essay
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This is an essay on the battle of Agincourt using a source to judge how far English victory at Agincourt was the result of the superiority of Henry V’s tactics and leadership.
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Assess the value of the source for judging how far English victory at Agincourt was theresult of the superiority of Henry V’s tactics and leadership.
This source is valuable in judging how far English victory at Agincourt was the result of the
superiority of Henry V’s tactics and leadership. Its value is limited by its bias against the
French leadership.
It could be argued that this source is valuable for judging how far English victory at
Agincourt was the result of the superiority of Henry V’s tactics and leadership. This source
gives us a balanced view of why Henry was successful; it doesn’t entirely focus on Henry’s
tactics and leadership, but gives us a clear idea of the misfortune and lack of good tactics
that the French had. For example, the entire first paragraph of the source discusses the
situation the French army were in prior to the battle. Waurin says that their horses ‘had
turned up the earth… so that only with some difficulty could the horses pick their hoofs up
from the ground’ because of the rain the previous night. Additionally, the French were ‘so
burdened with armour they could hardly bear it nor move forward’ and the combination of
these factors ‘held them almost immobile’. This is known to be accurate, as then Henry used
this misfortune on the French’s part to his advantage. The French army could not use their
archers as they were too tightly packed to do so, and so the English army utilised their huge
amount of archers and the fact that the French were effectively stuck in the mud- the
‘English archers… began with vigour to shoot arrows upon the French’ while not wearing
armour, in order that they would be lighter and not sink into the soft ground. In this
description, Waurin gives a balanced argument for why the English won the Battle of
Agincourt- on the one hand, that the French army were not in an ideal situation to fight
effectively, and on the other hand that Henry was able to come up with tactics that took
advantage of this. Waurin was Burgundian and related to a number of leading noble families
there, and later fought on the side of the English, being in the pro-English faction in the
court of the duke of Burgundy. This gives the source value because he was able to use both
perspectives of the French and English in writing his accounts, which could be why he was
able to write in such a balanced way.
Additionally, the source had value for judging how far English victory at Agincourt was the
result of the superiority of Henry V’s tactics and leadership, since it is overall very accurate.
As mentioned before, the information it gives about the situation of the French army is
known to be true, and the way that the battle played out is also accurate. For example, he
describes the ‘effectiveness of the English arrows… many of the French were wounded by
the arrows’. This is accurate, as around 80 percent of the English army were archers and
they made effective use of them, by placing them at the sides and some even behind enemy
lines to attack from the rear. The French, on the other hand, ‘were so tightly packed
together that they could not raise their arms’. This, too, is accurate as they decided to fight
in close formation with their cavalry at the back which led to the English arrows being able
to reach much more people, and made retreat very difficult for footmen. The source’s
provenance adds to this accuracy, for several reasons. Waurin was an eye-witness to the
Battle of Agincourt from the French camp when he was 15, and although the source was
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