Battle of Morlaix

A.H. Burne,[1] attributes huge numbers to the French, in fact, he maintains that each of the French divisions outnumbered the whole English army. It must be assumed that Burne follows Geoffrey le Baker’s idea that the English deployed as at Crécy and Dupplin Moor with archers on the flanks firing into the approaching enemy so as to constrict their formation and thus disorder them before they contacted the dismounted men-at-arms in the centre. According to Burne's reconstruction, the infantry column attacked first and was sent reeling back by volleys of arrows before it even contacted the English line of dismounted knights. After a consultation between the commanders the second column of cavalry attacked and many were brought down by falling into the pits that had been dug by the English. Some did manage to penetrate the English line but these, including Geoffrey de Charny, were captured by the Breton infantry held in reserve. The last French cavalry column after seeing the defeat of the first two divisions hesitated to attack but because the English archers were now short of arrows Northampton withdrew into the woods at his back and formed a ‘hedgehog’. Here he was safe from a cavalry charge and though the last French column did attack everywhere it was driven back.

Quite a lot of Burne’s account is speculative, driven by his need to give a coherent and readable narrative. One can only assume that he worked it out according to what he called ‘inherent military probability’ drawing on his knowledge of what happened at other battles of the period. However assuming that one commander behaved in the same way as others of that era is a dangerous procedure for writing history because it does not even happen in our own day despite military training schools and standardised books of tactics.

Jonathan Sumption[2] gives an alternative description of the battle which, while not contradicting Burne’s battle order for the English, depicts the actions of the French nobility in a way that is far more in line with other battles of the 100 Years War but not necessarily any more accurate than that of Burne.

According to Sumption, the first attack was mounted not by the infantry but by Franco-Breton cavalry under the command of Geoffrey de Charny. These reached the English positions but were thrown back in disarray and de Charny himself captured. It has to be assumed that the archers managed to disable the horses and with the force of the mounted charge blunted the men-at-arms were able to finish off the dismounted knights.

After this setback the second line of cavalry attacked but now fell into the pit traps. Presumably they, seeing the damage done by the archers were attempting to drive them off. This of course assumes that the archers were deployed on the wings and the pits dug only in front of them (much like the stakes at Agincourt) otherwise how else could the first line have avoided them while the second line fell into them.

Finally Sumption then goes on to say that almost no use was made of the French infantry who never left their starting positions. Evidently the English were very worried about the dismounted French because they then left their own prepared positions and retreated into the forest with their prisoners. Burne says that it was because they had not been able to retrieve their arrows.

Kelly DeVries 'Infantry Warfare in the Early 14th. Century' seems to follow the existing chronicle sources more closely than the Burne and Sumption and he gives a different account of the deployment of the English army. He maintains that the archers were intermingled with the men-at-arms because the knights were so few and also that the archers were given other weapons than their longbows which seems to imply that the English used no archery at all.

Like Sumption he maintains that the first line of cavalry attacked under the command of Geoffrey de Charny but were immediately put to flight. There is some confusion in DeVries account because the map he has drawn of the battlefield shows pits and ditches dug all around the English but nowhere does it say the first French attack fell into the pits but if the pits were all around how could they not fall into them? Like Burne, after the first failure he has the French leaders holding a conference amongst themselves in order to decide what to do next but eventually, as the French still outnumbered the English, another attack was mounted. From the sources he says it was unclear whether it was just a cavalry attack or a joint cavalry/infantry attack. Now his account becomes even more confusing because he says that the second line actually hit the English but were pushed back into the pits and ditches but does not explain how this was possible. He quotes Henry Knighton as saying that the French were drawn into a narrow cave and they fell on top of each other into the pits the English had dug. This may mean that there were no traps to the immediate front of the English position and the French cavalry came through the gap but when thrown back fell into the traps. Or does it mean that some French had already fallen into the pits and in order to avoid any further traps the next attack had to be mounted on a narrower front?

According to Ayton & Preston,[3] there is no detailed exposition of how the English were deployed except that they had taken position in front of a wood and that all were dismounted even the knights and that before the French arrived on the scene they had prepared the ground in front of them by digging pits and ditches and covering them with hay and grass.