Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but not great, December 6, 2007
I thoroughly enjoyed this book but I must say I feel that there should have been more detail of the battle, thus the three stars. The preperations and lead up to the battle, while important, take up far too many pages. Only one chapter out of eighteen is devoted to the battle.
If you want to get a really good idea of what medieval warfare was like this is a great book, but if you want to really undersand the strategy and tactics of the Battle of Agincourt, you may want to look elsewhere.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
King Henry's War, August 23, 2008
The battle of Agincourt is a legend even to those, like me, who know very little medieval history. That a small army of English soldiers, vastly outnumbered by their French opponents, have won one of the greatest victories in English history is well known. Before reading Julie Barker's "Agincourt", I also knew that the key to victory were England's fabled archers, and that the British King had been Henry V, of Shakespearean, but otherwise relatively little fame.
I bought my copy of "Agincourt" while on vacation in the UK, in the Borders at Oxford Street. Thus I have read the English edition, subtitled "The King, The Campaign, The Battle". I assume Dr. Barker has not written two different books about the famous battle.
The star of Dr. Barker's book is one man: Henry the Fifth. His father, Henry the fourth, had been an usurper, and a fairly incompetent monarch. Henry the fifth, on the other hand, was everything a King should be - capable, true to his word, honorable, and extremely efficient. Henry Fifth was a man who did not take slights easily, and dealt with opponents, at home and abroad, swiftly, effectively, and ruthlessly.
An ambitious man, Henry the Fifth, a descendant of French Kings, and self styled King of France, hungered for territories across the tunnel. As a civil war was raging within France, Henry was offered land and titles from both sides. But having tamed their opposition, the victors, known as the Armagnacs, were unwilling to give a large part of France away to the English King. His peaceful quest for his "just rights and inheritances" frustrated, Henry V went to war.
The English invasion of France proved to be a complicated endeavor, requiring highly sophisticated logistics. Henry searched for funds and men, for ships and horses, for surgeons and singers. The unstable boarder with the Scots and the constant plotting of noblemen who would be Kings made leaving England a difficult and dangerous task. Barker goes into great detail (perhaps too much detail) to explain the logistics (and politics) of the Invasion.
Henry's invasion cannot help but bring to mind a more recent cross channel invasion. Unlike the allies' invasion of Normandy, Henry V encountered few obstacles to landing his troops, once embarkation started on the 13th of August 1415. Barker argues that this was the customary strategy for war in the Middle Ages - it was better to wait in armed castles than to risk clashes in the field (p.167).
After landing in France, Henry put a siege on the strategic port city of Harfleur. The siege faced unexpectedly fierce opposition, and an outbreak of dysentery, which prolonged it until late September. As the campaigning season was nearing an end, and as war and pestilence ravaged Henry's Army, Henry ruled out any more sieges in his French campaign. Instead, he would march towards the English owned port of Calais, in what was known as a "chevauche", essentially a grand raid. France's most experienced leaders, the Constable d'Albert and Marshal Boucicaut, urged restraint. The French should allow Henry to complete his raid, arrive at Calais, and return to England. Then they would retake Harfleur at their leisure (p. 267).
D'Albert and Boucicaut were overruled. The French Army would step to block Henry's chevauche and force battle near the town of Azincourt.
After narrating the political maneuvering, the preparations, and the early stages of the campaign, Barker dedicates three chapters to the build up for the battle, the battle itself, and the aftermath. Unforgivably, the book does not offer a map of the battle, and Barker's superb narration cannot make up for its absence.
The battle of Agincourt features some 6 thousand Englishmen, about a thousand men-at-arms and five thousand archers, against a French army which of four to six times as many men. But the English had numerous advantages: Their troops were well led by Henry and his men, while the French forces, made of a haphazard coalition from both sides of Civil War, was divided and poorly led. The battlefield itself was too narrow to allow the French to take full advantage of their numerical superiority. And the weather was on the side of England, as the rainy ground made progressing on the field extremely difficult, thus making Agincourt something of a static battle,favoring the English archers over the French soldiers and knights.
The final chapters of Barker's book are anticlimactic, as Henry makes his way back to England following his great victory, and Barker leaves him preparing for his next invasion of France, to take place in 1417. The French, meanwhile, are still fighting their civil war - as if the battle of Agincourt made no difference, except in culling some of the civil warriors. Unfortunately missing from Barker's book is a discussion of Agincourt's role in a larger picture - as a signature battle in the Hundred Years War and possibly a key event in English history.
Although somewhat overlong and over-focused, I found Barker's book entertaining and enlightening. I recommend it to anyone interested in Agincourt, the Hundred Year War, or the Middle Ages.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Next best thing to being in England , July 18, 2008
Every book written from here on out should use this book as an example of how to facilitate understanding of the historical event being explored. I read the book once; I plan to read the book again. Juliet Barker makes excellent use of numerous sources to lay out the contemporary political climate, the social, cultural and economic factors that eventually led to this decisive battle. She completely immerses the reader in early 15th Century England providing for an outstanding historical experience. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is a fan of tactics, military/political strategy, military history in general; or if you just want to read about an epic clash of steel and the ultimate struggle of men.
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