The Project Gutenberg EBook of Crecy, by Hilaire Belloc

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Title: Crecy

Author: Hilaire Belloc

Release Date: May 1, 2010 [EBook #32196]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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CRECY

[Illustration]

CRECY

BY
HILAIRE BELLOC

MCMXII
STEPHEN SWIFT AND CO., LTD.
16 KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN
LONDON

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION, 9

I. THE POLITICAL CIRCUMSTANCES, 20

II. THE CAMPAIGN OF CRECY, 29

III. THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE BATTLE, 61

IV. THE TERRAIN OF CRECY, 91

V. THE ACTION, 100

CRECY

INTRODUCTION

Between those last precise accounts of military engagements which
antiquity has left us in small number, and what may be called the modern
history of war, there lies a period of many centuries--quite 1400
years--during which the details of an action and even the main features of
a campaign are never given us by contemporary recorders.

Through all that vast stretch of time we are compelled, if we desire to
describe with any accuracy, and at any length, the conduct of a battle, to
"reconstitute" the same. In other words, we have to argue from known
conditions to unknown. We have to establish by a comparison of texts and
of traditions, and by other processes which will be dealt with in a
moment, a number of elements which, where a modern action is concerned,
numerous memoirs and official record often accompanied by elaborate maps
can put clearly before us.

We should note that the line of division between what we will call a
medieval battle and a modern one, though it cannot, of course, be
precisely established, corresponds roughly to the sixteenth century. The
battles of the seventeenth are for the most part open in detail to the
historian, from copious evidence afforded by contemporary writers and