Less protected troops.
They could force men to close visors and reduce visibility.
They could create noise and confusion.
A wounded man becomes an obstacle.
A wounded horse becomes a much larger obstacle.
Thousands of projectiles falling into restricted ground influence movement even when many fail to penetrate armor.
At Poitiers, archery worked as part of a system.
Terrain slowed and compressed the enemy.
Archers exploited the compression.
Men-at-arms then fought opponents who arrived tired, disrupted, or unevenly supported.
The English advantage was not simply "longbows beat knights."
It was the interaction of bows, ground, discipline, and timing.
Edward Divided His Army Into Battles
Medieval armies frequently organized major bodies of troops into divisions commonly called battles.
The word could refer to a formation within the army rather than the entire engagement.
Edward arranged his men-at-arms and archers carefully.
Among the important commanders were experienced Gascon and English nobles.
The precise deployment is debated because medieval chroniclers do not give us a modern staff map.
But the general design is understandable.
The army needed to deny the French an easy massed approach.
Archers were placed where they could fire into likely routes.
Men-at-arms formed the hard defensive center.
A reserve remained available.
Edward himself was not hiding far from the fighting.
He participated in the battle at close range.
For an aristocratic medieval commander, personal presence mattered.
Men followed a prince partly because they could see that he accepted the same danger.
That style of command carried enormous risk.
Kill or capture the commander and an army might collapse.
At Poitiers, Edward accepted that risk because his army needed cohesion more than he needed physical safety.
The French Army Was Also Divided Into Major Divisions
King John's force included several important formations under senior nobles and royal princes.
One early element involved French marshals and selected mounted men.
Behind them came larger bodies of troops, many fighting on foot.
The Dauphin Charles, John's son and future King Charles V, commanded one important division.
The Duke of Orléans commanded another.
The king himself remained with a large final body.
This layered arrangement theoretically gave the French depth.
If one attack failed, another could follow.
The problem was coordination.
Successive attacks can wear down a defender.
They can also allow the defender to defeat the army in pieces.
At Poitiers, the second possibility gradually emerged.
The First French Attack Tested the English Position
The opening phases remain difficult to reconstruct in perfect detail.
Medieval sources differ over sequence and numbers.
A force of French mounted men advanced toward the English line, apparently with the objective of disrupting the archers and opening the way for the larger infantry assault.
This made tactical sense.
Archers are especially dangerous when allowed to stand and shoot undisturbed.
Mounted troops could potentially close quickly enough to scatter them.
But horses entering restricted ground under arrow fire are difficult to control.
Some were hit.
Others encountered obstacles.
The charge lost some of its intended force.
French commanders including Marshal Jean de Clermont and Arnoul d'Audrehem were deeply involved.
Clermont was killed.
Audrehem was captured.
The preliminary effort did not clear the battlefield.
The English archers remained dangerous.
That meant the following French formations still had to advance through the same pressure.
The French Main Advance Came on Foot
The Dauphin's division moved forward.
Thousands of armored men began crossing the ground separating the armies.
This was the kind of moment Edward had prepared for.
Archers fired.
The French kept coming.
It would be misleading to imagine them falling instantly.
Men-at-arms were disciplined warriors.
Many had excellent armor.
They knew a decisive battle was underway.
They closed the distance.
When the French reached the English and Gascon men-at-arms, the fight became close and exhausting.
Spears.
Swords.
Axes.
Polearms.
Men pushing behind shields and armor.
The battle lost the clean geometry visible before contact.
Once formations collide, commanders see less.
Dust and bodies block vision.
Flags become crucial.
Messengers struggle to move.
A reserve may be only a few hundred yards away and still not understand exactly what is happening.
The French numerical advantage was now inside this confusion.
Edward's objective was to prevent it from becoming simultaneous pressure everywhere.
The terrain continued helping him.
Restricted Ground Made the French Army Feel Smaller Than It Was
Imagine twenty men trying to force their way through a doorway wide enough for five.
The men behind do not disappear.
They also cannot all fight at once.
Something similar occurs on a larger scale when terrain funnels an army.
Hedges and vineyards did not reduce the number of French soldiers.
They reduced the number who could reach the English line together.
The English line therefore faced only a fraction of the total French strength at any specific point.
Meanwhile archers on the edges could fire into men struggling through the approaches.
This does not make the English position impregnable.
Enough pressure eventually breaks almost any position.
But it bought time.
At Poitiers, time became Edward's most important resource.
Every French division that exhausted itself without breaking the line made the next phase more favorable to him.
The Dauphin's Men Fought Hard Enough to Threaten the Defense
The battle was not a simple massacre.
English and Gascon troops suffered.
Men were wounded.
Arrows diminished.
The close fighting placed enormous pressure on Edward's line.
Some French troops reached the defenders in good order.
The prince could not know whether another assault would finally break his army.
This uncertainty is important.
Looking backward, we know Poitiers ends with King John captured.
Edward did not.
During the early fighting, he faced the possibility that the French divisions behind the first attackers would keep coming until his smaller force collapsed.
A commander under those conditions tends to value reserves enormously.
Commit them too early and there is nothing left.
Hold them too long and the front might break before they can intervene.
Edward waited.
That patience became part of the victory.
Then the French Began Making One of the Battle's Most Important Movements
After severe fighting, the Dauphin's division began withdrawing.
Why?
Exhaustion.
Losses.
Orders.
The need to reorganize.
Medieval sources do not provide one perfectly clear answer.
What matters is how the movement was interpreted by others.
Withdrawal in medieval battle is dangerous because the boundary between organized retreat and panic is thin.
Men behind see troops coming backward.