A Short History of the Hundred Years War by Prestwich Michael;

Author:Prestwich, Michael;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Hundred Years War / Plantagenet / Valois / Agincourt / Joan of Arc
ISBN: 9781786723260
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK
Published: 2019-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

LIVING OFF THE LAND

Effective as the systems for victualling armies may have been, living off the land was part of the routine of war. It made sense to do so, for it meant that fewer carts carrying supplies were needed. Yuval Harari worked out a theoretical scenario for an army of 10,000 men with 5,000 camp-followers, which showed that had it taken all the supplies needed for a campaign lasting 50 days, over 1,800 carts and more than 7,000 packhorses would have been needed. Large quantities of cattle could have been driven to provide meat. Harari suggested that his figures show that it was possible for a raiding army to carry all the supplies it needed.18 In practice, such a supply train would have been impractical, and no armies operated in this way. Even on the king’s 1355 campaign, which lasted a mere fortnight, the troops did not take enough with them, and ‘all the foodstuffs and other supplies were taken into the cities and castles, so that there were no victuals for the English, and therefore they had to return to Calais’.19

Although abundant supplies had been brought from England, Edward III’s men lived off the land from the outset of his campaign in 1346. A letter reported with evident pleasure the discovery of foodstuffs at Valognes, and of 1,000 tuns of wine at St-Lô. After the capture of Caen, the army stayed there two or three days to resupply with victuals that were there in plenty.20 As the army was forced to advance further and further inland, up the Seine, foraging became increasingly important. Among other sources of food, the rivers provided welcome fresh fish.

When the Black Prince led his two great raids of 1355 and 1356 from Gascony, supplies sent from England were very limited. Instead, he was paid £6,666 to buy victuals locally. Descriptions of his raids emphasized the scale of destruction as town after town, village after village was sacked. ‘Those who wished to do so went out and took provisions and forage, burning enemy territory, and they did everything that would bring back peace to the country.’ Some days were difficult. One march was particularly hard on the horses, especially since there was no water for them, so they had to drink wine. It was perhaps less of a hardship for the men that their food had to be cooked in wine, but this was plainly not to their taste.21

Even with a lengthy baggage train, it would have been very difficult to take adequate supplies for Edward III’s lengthy campaign in 1359–60. At the start, food, and particularly fodder for the horses, was hard to come by, as Artois had suffered acutely from the war. Matters improved when the Abbey of Fémy proved to have ample stocks of victuals. At Reims it was difficult to find sufficient supplies, for instructions had been given to the city authorities: ‘You are to guard our said town, and all the grain and other victuals from all the land

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