In the summer of 1415, Henry, with a force of ap-
proximately 10,000 men, landed his fleet in northern
France with his first goal being the capture of the town
of Harfleur. Finding the French in control there, he laid
siege to Harfleur for a period of about one month, from
August to September 1415. The French finally capitu-
lated, and Henry marched into the village, victorious.
However, it was a Pyrrhic victory, as many of his men
were short on food and wracked with illness. Henry had
intended next to march on toward Calais, 120 miles
away, where he could embark his exhausted army and
return to England, but his forces were blocked by the
French at Agincourt on 25 October 1415.
Historians continue to write about the significance
of the battle of Agincourt both in military history and
in the history of Europe. In a small valley near what is
now Azincourt, France, Henry led his 6,000 remaining
soldiers and 5,000 archers, against some 25,000 French
troops, many of them mounted knights in full armor,
under the commanders Jean Le Meingre Boucicaut and
Charles d’Albret. The day before the battle, the area
had been inundated by heavy rains, and the ground was
pure mud. This gave Henry, grossly outnumbered, a
great advantage he would not have had otherwise. The
French knights, weighed down with armor, were easy
targets for the English bowmen and sank quickly into
the mud. D’Albret was killed during the battle, and
Boucicaut was captured by Henry’s men and eventually
taken back in chains to England, where he would die
in 1421.
French casualties, mostly dead, numbered approxi-
mately 5,000; the English lost about 200 in total. In this
first invasion of France, Henry had lost about 8,000,
but the French army of 50,000 was destroyed. The role
of the English archers is what makes Agincourt a notable
battle: It confirmed the tactics of the Battle of Crécy,
demonstrated that good archers on foot could defeat ar-
mored knights on horseback, and laid the foundation
for the domination of the English army in France for
another 30 years.
Henry returned home in triumph and signed an
alliance with Sigismund, the Holy Roman Emperor.
In 1417, he again invaded France, and for two years,
he battled the French forces, defeating them at Rouen
(1419) and gaining Normandy for England. The French,
desiring an end to the conflict, agreed to the Treaty of
Troyes (21 May 1420), in which King Charles VI agreed
to marry his daughter, Catherine of Valois, to Henry in
exchange for allowing Catherine to corule France with
Henry after Charles’s death. Henry entered Paris in tri-
umph in 1420, and the following year he returned to
England with his new wife. A son, also named Henry,
was born in 1421.
Within a year, Henry determined to confirm his
claim to the French throne, and despite public opposi-
tion to further warfare, he gathered an army and crossed
over to France to quell growing resistance there. How-
ever, while conducting this campaign, Henry was struck
down by dysentery, to which he succumbed on 31 Au-
gust 1422, age 35. His son, just nine months old, was
crowned as Henry VI.References: Towle, George Makepeace, The History of
Henry the Fifth, King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Heir
of France (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1866);
Goodwin, Thomas, The History of the Reign of Henry
the Fifth, King of England, &c. In Nine Books (London:
Printed by J. D. for S. and J. Sprint, 1704); Allmand,
C. T., Lancastrian Normandy, 1415–1450: The History
of a Medieval Occupation (Oxford, U.K.: The Clarendon
Press, 1983); Nicolas, Sir N. Harris, History of the Battle
of Agincourt, and of the Expedition of Henry the Fifth into
France, in 1415... (London: Johnson & Co., 1832),
1–5; Drayton, Michael, The Ballad of Agincourt.... (Ox-
ford, U.K.: Charles Batey, 1951).Hindenburg, Paul Ludwig Hans von
Beneckendorf und von (1847–1934) German
general
Born in the village of Posen, Prussia, on 2 October 1847,
Paul von Hindenburg was the son of a Prussian military
officer. He came from an illustrious background: His
family could trace its origins back to the 13th century,
with many members serving in the military. Hinden-
burg continued this tradition when he entered the mili-
tary cadet school at Wahlstatt in Silesia when he was just
11 years old, advancing after a short period to attend the
main military academy in Berlin.
In 1866, upon graduation from the Berlin academy,
Hindenburg joined the Prussian military as a member
of the 3rd Guards of Foot at Danzig (now part of Po-
land). He saw service in the Prussian-Austrian War and
was wounded on 3 July 1866 at the battle of Sadowa,
also known as Königgrätz, while storming an Austrian
battery. For his service, he was awarded the Order ofhinDenbuRg, pAul luDwig hAnS von beneckenDoRF unD von