AVBHGAU7

The mists of time are somewhat thick around the early stages of the Hundred Years War. There are conflicting accounts and gaps in the evidence; we do not even know if, when Edward III landed in Normandy in 1346, he intended a conquest or merely a grand chevauchée.

[a:David Nicolle|3260|David Nicolle|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png] takes the opposite view on almost all the contentious questions to [a:Burne|193637|Alfred H. Burne|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png] in his classic account of the war. Whereas Burne painted Edward as a great strategist surrounded by talented officers up against a weakling, Philip VI, aided, mostly, by nincompoops, Nicolle sees Edward as more favoured by fortune and Philip as rather shrewd.

While the truth undoubtedly lies somewhere between the two, I can't help feeling it lies closer to Burne than Nicolle. Take two examples. There is an old story that Genoese crossbowmen at Crécy were hindered by the strings on their bows getting wet. Burne discounts this, saying that professional soldiers would have known how to keep their equipment in working order in the face of a common event like rain, as the English longbowmen did. Nicolle, by contrast, credits the story, pointing out that it is more difficult to remove the string from a crossbow than from a longbow. True, but I still think, as Burne argues, that professional, mercenary soldiers would have known how to deal with this.

Second, the day after Crécy, a French force arrived from Abbeville and was seen off in short order. In Nicolle's narrative, they arrived on the battlefield in ignorance of the events of the day before and were surprised by the English. Burne, however, makes the point that the roads in every direction after a debacle like Crécy, would have been packed with survivors, with the road to Abbeville being no exception. Again, I find Burne's version more convincing.

This is a decent introduction to the battle of Crécy, but given the differing interpretations of it, it is best read in conjunction with another. ( )