The Battle of Agincourt (720p) 

You have to hand it to those medieval Europeans: they had decent computer-generated animation in 1415.

“When you fight the British, you fight fate itself” Napoleon Bonaparte

The English expression “ keep it under your hat” means keep that a secret. But actually comes from English/Welsh archers removing the string from the bow and placing under their hat at night to keep it dry so it retains it’s tension. Whereas the French using the crossbow couldn’t do this so come the morning the string would be damp and would be much less effective.

I love when video games such as Medieval 2 can make documentary-like videos like these.

There where English and Welsh archers with Henry. I’m English, but they need a mention.

Never underestimate this little island......

601 downvotes are from angry cartographers in the comments.

'The year is 1415' Shows map of the late 19th century.

The English forces are smart, calculating, disciplined and well led. French forces are emotional, unthinking with incompetent leadership. The greatest loss on that field of battle were the French cavalry horses. Darn good video. Thank you.

Agincourt, the reason why true Englishmen's finger insult is two fingers not one.

how many people are here after THE KING

Freaking amazing video is all I can say. Great introduction, awesome use of the game to show how the battle (is said to have) went and overall a great video! I really hope you got special recognition for this, I truly do.

William Shakespeare reported that Henry V said: 'He would shed his blood with me is my brother'. Actually, what Shakespeare recognized has always been know by men in combat.

I have visited the actual field and it had changed little in 1989, but it was still heavily wooded and from above it looked like an hourglass, and the main killing zone was in the muddy centre, whilst the French were harried by English archers firing from the woods also. Even by medieval standards this battle was a short one lasting only a few short hours.

Just the thought of those mighty horses getting impaled on those spikes grieved me.

I watched a detailed documentary about the Battle of Agincourt some time ago and the explanations were very well presented. According to that documentary, the French nobility were very eager to get back at the English for their losses in major battles and the recent sieges and raids on French towns. Moreover, the French wanted take prisoner the English nobility to exact ransoms. With such a numerical advantage (3-1 to 5-1 depending on sources), it was a first come first served basis on capturing English knights (commoners were of course of no value and would've been slaughtered). the course of the battle AFAIK was: 1.) Eager French Knights charged ahead of the army. 2.) Longbowmen and stakes kill many horses, repelling the cavalry. The cavalry retreats through French crossbowmen which were advancing. 3.) French dismounted knights making up the vanguard advance across the cavalry-churned up quagmire. They pull down visors to protect their faces against the arrows, restricting breathing. 4.) After sloshing through hundreds of yards of knee-deep mud, wearing dozens of pounds of steel and not being able to breathe exhausted the French infantry even before they reached the English lines. not to mention the crowding and bogging down of the attack due to avoiding fallen comrades slain by arrow fire. 5.) By the time the French dismounted knights reached the English knights, witnesses write "they were so tired, they could barely lift their weapons" and that all that was needed was to push them over and stab them through the slits of the helms.. 6.) Knowing it was a fight to the death for them, English commoners made no pretensions on taking prisoners. The French vanguard was thus decimated, with few losses on the English side. 7.) While the English nobility took lots of prisoners, they were afraid that the French prisoners might get the idea to take up arms littered all over the place if the French rearguard regrouped and made another attack. So, they had the prisoners killed.

Its concerning when a student production is better quality than the History Chanel. How long did this take you?

This is a hard battle to win in medieval 2.

"...we few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother..."

We have animated this battle with Lego bricks on our channel

Check “Agincourt” by Bernard Cornwell.

Everything fine but wabu the background 1900 map ? Lol

NEVER underestimate the ENGLISH 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

what's the point of a map when it doesn't show the actual geographic area in detail, not to mention the fact that the map is apparently from late 19th / early 20th century.

DAYUM! I really hope you got an A+ for this. You earned it.

Than you very much for taking the time to do this, very good!

I would say that Henry and his men did not merely "write their names in history" to quote Joker from "Full metal Jacket" they "nailed their names in history."

Nice try, But why oh why make the "background" music so loud? just about drowns out the narrative!

You put that together very well. The cuts to black screen threw me at one point and I thought my video had dropped. A fade would have cured that 👍. I think Crusader Kings strategy game offers detailed maps from any date from 1066 to 1453.

Very well done. Despite the criticisms, valid as many are, this video is engaging. It held my attention throughout its 12 minutes. It gave me a much better understanding of what happened that day (and those preceding), how & why. The video graphics are as good as one should expect here. The telling of the story, more so. "...Henry picks a fight." was so very well put. It is, after all, what won him the day.

Say what you will about the French but considering us English crushed them in some very decisive battles early on, they rose back up on top form and went on to win the war. Our oldest friends and our oldest enemies.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Don't take this too seriously, it's an American telling of an English told story. Entertaining as it is, also, a very brief tale of the real happenings. The WELSH (not English) archers never seem to get any gratitude. Well done the Welsh!!

Love the airburst artillery at 9:12. Was made at college or kindergarden?

Great video! Its my favourite battle of all time,there's just something magical about it.If time travel were possible,how amazing would it be to go back and witness this epic fight!

The English lost about 650 men. More than written into history, into legend. There are many good books on this subject, one of the most fun to start with is by Bernard Cornwell who also write about Crecy & Poitiers, and the amazing power of The English War Bow, no ordinary bow for arrows, sometimes described as the medieval machine gun its ammunition included armor piercing arrows.

Agincourt 1415 and a map of Belgium, created in 1830?

5:30 - weren't they also against the edge of the forest so their backs would be covered?

I am in the l o n g process of writing a screenplay for a feature film set in this period, this battle playing the finale, at least of part 1 because the story is about a Frenchman and the battle seen through his eyes, particularly the build up to it. As a Production Designer and researcher and in this instance a writer of this period I am very pleased to see beautiful executed animated reference to my subject matter. Thanks and well done. Ian Bailie.

The battle was won by Welsh archers, they also won the battle of Crecy. Not my words, but written by the chief instructor at Sandurts Militry Academy. Also by William Shakespeare.

Well, I certainly hope you got an "A" for this project!! I've read the Agincourt section of Keegan's book many times, but I always had a tough time visualizing the battle in my head; this was well done.

The archers attacked the French Knights from both flanks with mallets and daggers when they reached the English lines.

The English archers had disentary & cut the backsides of their pants off so they literally crap themselves during the battle, they probably felt so lousy that is another tribute to pay them that they carried on. I tried a modern bow with about 50 lbs of pressure, it was pretty hard to draw, & the longbow had around 120 lbs upwards so it was at least instructive as to the power of one, so another tribute to the long bowmen who also carved up the Scots big time with them, must have been like an 'army of Arnies'. The French however have long memories, & have been getting back at us every eurovision since.

Is there a chance you can reference your source for account of actually the battle of Agincourt? I've read a different account that contradicts this one substantially.

Now that really was a cool video. The animated battle was way better than just narrating. Looking forward to the next one. Thank you!

Wow, that we amazing. Made Medieval 2 look some much better

Why use a map that didn't exist for another 400 years?

Never say die...even against great odds.

Stellar video. Couple of questions: 1. The battle you recorded seems to be a custom battle, not the Historical Battle in M2TW. Did you manually create the whole map? Or how did you manage to use the Historical Battle map to create a custom battle? 2. How did you get those smooth camera and cinematic movements from within the game? Thank you!

It took approximately ten years for an archer to master the Long Bow. The average age life expectancy was into the late 20's and early 30's. The draw weight on a bow was in the vicinity of 150lbs. Which would be like trying to pull back a string made of steel. So archers would have to start training before their teens. Hmmm. Maybe so. Archeological digs have shown the bone skeletons of archers having larger calcification in the shoulder of the arm holding the bow. They were amazingly strong. As an amateur archer myself who prefers the modern long bow this was stupendous.

Whos here after watching “the king” on Netflix? 😇

This seems to be a fairly good project for a second semester history (102) student. It is easy to criticize while sitting at home watching at your leisure. If this project had been for a Masters Degree or PhD, then you would expect much more. I think you did a good job for an 18 year old college freshman. Keep up the good work and learn from their constructive comments but don't take the criticism as a personal attack. Remember, "A wise man learns from the mistakes of others. A normal man learns from his own mistakes but a fool learns from no one's mistakes."

Lots missing, notably the decision by Henry to move his line forward 100yds after the long wait, to get the French into arrow range. BTW, medieval longbow had draw weights of 200lbs or so, were about 6ft long, and were shot using a very different technique from today’s bows. But they achieved 300yds range with heavy arrows having steel armour- and mail-piercing points. The French heavy cavalry were on what we would now call cart-horses, due to the weight of armour. So they could do 25mph max. That’s 30secs to do 300yds. In that time the English archers could loose about 4 arrows. So that first French cavalry charge received around 20,000 arrows. The second charge by the men-at-arms would have received maybe 100,000 arrows. PS. The musket was an inferior weapon to the longbow: in accuracy and rate of fire. The only reason it superseded the longbow as it took a lot less time to become competent, and the opponents were more amateur and bunched up - and more easily spooked by gunfire.

What game is this?

A school project using Sony Vegas and a computer game. A very modern approach which illustrates the information very well. Details can always be discussed but I think this is cool. Kudos!

Quick trivia question: Who won the World Cup in 1415? Answer: Team England

Nice!!! That was really well done.

Oh we band of brothers

A large part of the battle was after the maul, No prisoners were taken the Officers and Knights who would normally be held for ransom were dispatched where they were. A horrific idea for the day

Cry God for Harry, England and Saint George!

"Agincourt" se prononçant : "édgiincort" Dernière info: le "CharlesVI" de Georges Bordonove (Ed.Pygmalion) donne un récit très détaillé de la bataille et des événements antérieures (débarquement d'Henry V, prise d'Harfleur etc).

6:21 ha didn't know that they had black men as archers in the English army in the 15th century

The stakes were not dug into the ground, they were portable and were even moved prior to to the start of the battle when Henry realised the longbow men were not close enough to the French. The longbow could out range the crossbow but it didn't fire that far. He also had some archers hidden either side of the field in the trees which were lower than the field, which made it easier to surround the fallen knights.

Well done on the graphics. It makes history vivid and dramatic.

i think this is great. agincourt is maybe the greatest example of jujitsu, using (in this case, unintentionally) your opponent's strength to your advantage, in military history. all the more impressive that the english could not have predicted what was going to happen. they were there to die but take as many with them as possible (war is so stupid). as an extra credit project, fantastic.

First, the map dates between 1908 and 1914-18 as the Bosnia is painted in light red as the Austrian-Hungarian double monarchy... For the "France of 1415" it is much more complicated... a "patchwork" (Britanny, Savoie, Navarre, Lorraine... and Burgundian territories - Middle-East and northern France, aid at that time Gascogne) are not part of the "Royaume de France"... Secondly, the armours and equipments represented here have nothing to do with those of 1415... finally, they are no such high hills around the plain of Agincourt... Greetings, D. D. France (living 40 miles from Agincourt, having some recognised knowledge about the story, the armours, swords and bows, the field of A., and being many times there, acting for reenactement... )

The real problem was the crowd crushing of the French. Similar to what happens in sports stadiums when there are too many people and no escape. The mud immobilised them. Many of them died of suffocation or were simply stabbed or beaten to death where they stood unable to move. The easiest way to kill them was to push a dagger through the visor. In the end it was a slaughter. Something similar happened to the Romans at Cannae against Hannibal.

I don't know why anyone is being picky about map dates and stuff; you've created an awesome resource. Your speaking voice is clear, interesting and informative.

could i ask what the song is that plays at first light just before the battle. I know its from either Angels and Demons, or The DaVinci code, i just cant for the life of me remember it.

the French had a large number of Genoese Crossbowmen, in an attempt to counter the English archers. Thanks to the shorter range of the crossbows, it didn't work. But they were the targets of the first English volleys, if memory serves.

It’s where we the English first used two fingers as an insult

Most of the killing occurred when the charging French Knights , massed tighter together like sardines with their forward momentum stopped and they found themselves tired and disconbublecated like a boxer from all those arrows hitting home hard ...a longbowmen pulling a 140 lb bow and firing the biggest and heaviest arrow (3.5 ounz) at about 130 miles a hour is the same as being punched by a middleweight boxer , so even if the arrow didn't kill them it hurt , confused and tired them out and now with the arrows used up the longbow men threw down their bows and picked up their steak hammers and maces ...these muscled men were not weighted down by armour and manouverability and so swarmed around the packed in , muddy , slippy French knights fell in droves

Excellent, thank you for making and delivering this video

It was the mud and the arrows that destroyed the french, running across that field in mud drained the energy of the knights before they ever reached the english side.

7:20 , the knight hopitalars fight for the French at The Battle of Agincourt, really?

Modern scholarship has shown it was probably closer to 3 - 1 against the English - still long odds, especially when many of them were suffering from serious sickness, including dysentry, which is not even mentioned here (it was responsible for much of the English loss of numbers at Harfleur as well). The archers that we are given a brief shot of here look more like they have come out of Tolkien than how they would have really looked in 1415. But the worst thing is the lack of understanding or visualisation of the tactics, the events, and the effects of the environment on the battle. And misrepresentations like men=at-arms running in full harness with visors down - at night!

112 dislikes. They hold their manhood cheap.

Lots of holes in this video and the monotone narrative about drove me crazy but putting it in context of a students project... really well done. Good for you

Great video, man. Really well done. Good soundtrack as well.

Complete Bollocks. The archers wore a leather cap, no gloves of any kind and no armor of any kind. The fact that they could, and i quote the King's scribe, " .....shoot the eye out of a clam at 100 paces" and 12,000 of them shoot 12 arrows per minute was enough to darken the sky when they shot. Nothing survived. The men and horses of the french were piled up eight feet high in front of their lines. That is a fact from writings of those times. This that you see here is some child's computer imagination.

Thank you for this. The brute fact is that the Norman's invaded England, and England therefore has a a legitimate claim on Normandy. Sorry France, Normandy (and the whole of the Angevin Empire) is English.

nice choices of music

Perhaps the details of the uniforms, equipment and skin tones are debatable, but the facts of the battle are not. This was a nicely produced summation of how the battle was fought and some (but not all) of the tactics employed. I used Vegas Pro and compared it with Premiere and Final Cut. I'm a Premiere fan.

Did knights really run light that in full armour? am not being picky just curious.

A great victory, but the English lost the war not long after. You also fail to mention the impetuous stance of the french in this battle; most of the french army was composed of nobles, while the English were ranked as peasants. fighting with bows. how could knights of nobility possibly lose to a bunch of peasants? that mentality was their downfall. At the start of the battle, the English slung insults at the standing french army. The french commander knew the superior position of the English, he didn't want to fight here, but the french nobles were enraged and charged the English lines, only to be met by a massacre.

Welsh and English brothers in arms

Wrong map dude, this is a pre-WW1 map of Europe.

Why do you show a WW1 era map at the beginning for this time period?

This is really cool to see! As someone putting together a one-man series based on Shakespeare's "Henry V" this is a really good resource! Thanks!

This was a very bad historical video, many bad facts such as the 19 century map at the beginning and the French deciding not to attack because it was such a simple victory is not true, they were waiting for re-enforcement's who had been left behind in the march and didnt want to make the first move. The french knew the English were low on food so preferred to starve them out. There were more thngs wrong but just look up a better video on youtube for something accurate

When the English taunt the french: "Zee Englise said zat my muzzer was ze smelly! Le charge! "

Are you quite sure that there were hospitaller knights in the french army ? 7:10 Good video though.

Is there any reason why the map at the outset shows Europe at the start of WW1 (1914)?

Just one question. Why are you using a map from 1900?

A narrow and muddy battlefield, the French were mainly killed because they were stucked in the mud or because of horses/knights bodies in front of them. Due to the weight of knight armors back then, once they fall it's difficult for them to get up. Even a simple English squire could easily kill a fallen knight with just a knife. Don't think i try to find excuse, being French, for the French defeat, it was a crushing English victory nevertheless.

That map in the beginning is roughly form late 19th century... couldn't even watch the rest...

Whenever I watch any enactment of this battle, I'm always outraged by the Frenchy colossal stupidity :((

Very well made video. Amazing that you could use a game to explain such a famous battle so clearly.

Great work bro!! I bet you got an A. Love the use of Medieval 2 Total War. I don't know how you did it but that is one of my favorite games of all-time!

Just finished reading 'Bernard Cornwell, Agincourt' Pretty accurate.