ABSTRACT
It have been expected that the disasters of the final stage of the Hundred Years’ War would have taught English generals that the time-honoured tactics of Creçy and Agincourt were not infallible. That they were good for dealing with an enemy who consented to attack an English army ranged in a position which it had chosen at its leisure, was still true. In such a case it did not much matter if the enemy were horse or foot, or both combined. But problems had been raised to which the old receipt for victory gave no adequate answer—what was to be done with an enemy who altogether declined to take the offensive, or who stockaded himself and used artillery in profusion, or who delivered unexpected assaults against an English army on the march? Was the employment of mounted, in conjunction with dismounted, men-at-arms a complete mistake? If that device had been a failure at Agincourt and Verneuil, it had been of some effect at Patay and Formigny. Could artillery be employed to advantage in the field, as well as behind earthworks? Had the development of the hand-gun to be taken into consideration as a new force in war?
