Suppressingfire's video: M2TW Kingdoms Bellum Crucis6 3: The Battle of Cr cy 1346 1 2

The Battle of Crécy 1346 was fought between the Kingdom of England & the Kingdom of France during the Hundred Years War, & was a decisive victory for the English over the French. The English army 10-15,000 strong was led by King Edward III & his eldest son Prince Edward 'the Black Prince' who was Knighted the night before the battle, while the French army being roughly twice the size of that of the English was led by King Philip VI of France. Both sides had a few allies & mercenaries, the English had a few Holy Roman Empire knights with them, the French had the blind king John of Bohemia with some of his men, Louis I Count of Flanders with his men, some Spanish from the Kingdoms of Navarre & Majorca & some 15,000 Genoese Crossbowmen. King Edward III positioned his army in 3 divisions of knights & men-at-arms on a highground with longbowmen on the flanks & in the middle in a 'V' shape. They used sharpened stakes infront of the bowmen & also spread caltrops infront of their positions. The French sent the Genoese Crossbowmen first and it was worse than hopeless for them, many of them got killed by the superior longbows & by the English cannons, the rest retreated & were trampled down by the French knights who were behind them. When the French knights & men-at-arms charged up hill they were being slaughtered by hails of arrows, their charge was futile & suffered heavy casualties in hand-to-hand combat. In other words it was a disaster for the French, who lost the flower of their nobility & knights even King Philip VI himself was wounded & most of those around him got killed. 1000s of French lay dead & the remaining French had no choise but to break & flee. Some 2,200 heraldic coats were taken from the field as war-booty along with weapons, armor, prisoners etc.