Great Battles in History

On October 7, 1571, the fleets of the Christian Holy League and the Ottoman Empire clashed near Lepanto off the west coast of Greece. Lepanto was the largest battle on land or sea in Europe in the sixteenth century. During it, over 130,000 combatants had crewed some 500 oared warships. At the battle’s end, at least 35,000 Ottomans and 8,000 Christians had lost their lives. Lepanto was also the climax of a ferocious fifty-year-long struggle waged by the greatest naval powers of the day for domination of the Mediterranean Sea. On one side were Spain, the first global empire in history, and Venice, a fabulously wealthy merchant republic. On the other side was the Sublime State of the House of Osman—the Ottoman Empire—a dynamic Muslim polity that ruled a domain stretching from Algeria to Mesopotamia. Last but not least, Lepanto was the swan song of the naval technology that had dominated the Mediterranean Sea for over two thousand years: the war galley.  

In the coming weeks, I will also be posting this episode in shorter parts.

Trailer for Episode Five, the Battle of Lepanto, coming in January 2022. The music is Havada Bulut Yok by Turku, Nomads of the Silk Road , licensed under anAttribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

The complete episode of Agincourt, including parts one to ten.

Agincourt was an overwhelming victory for Henry V and England. After it, the English went on to conquer Normandy. Then, in 1420, Henry forced the French to agree to the treaty of Troyes, which made him the heir to the French throne. But his premature death in 1422 turned the tide of the Hundred Years' War. The French recovered and pushed their enemies out of France. By 1453, only Calais remained in English hands. The Hundred Years ' War was over. 

 

On October 24, 1415, the feast day of the twin saints Crispin and Crispinian, the English and French armies arrayed for battle on the muddy field of Agincourt. The action began when the English advanced and the longbowmen loosed a storm of arrows. When the fighting ended three hours later, the English had won an unexpected and total victory. 

After landing in Normandy, Henry V and the English army besieged the key port of Harfleur. The city fell following a six-week siege.  Henry then decided to carry out a swift dash across France to the English-held fortress-town of Calais. Along the way, the French sought to bring him to battle. On October 24, 1415, near the village of Agincourt, Henry found a massive French army blocking the route to Calais. The English army had no choice except to fight. 

In 1413, Henry V succeeded to the throne of England. An able statesman and experienced warrior, he was determined to restore the English lands in France and press the Plantagenet claim to the French throne. Meanwhile, France had plunged into a devastating civil war between two noble factions, the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. Taking advantage of this crisis, Henry landed in Normandy with a powerful army in August 1415. 

After the Battle of Poitiers, France's fortunes were at their lowest. In the 1360s, the new French king, Charles the Wise, led a remarkable recovery in political, financial and military strength. An English intervention in Spain then offered an opportunity to renew the Hundred Years' War. The French king and his Constable, the Breton knight Bertrand du Guesclin, carried out a spectacular reconquest that reduced English possessions in France to a remnant of Aquitaine. 

After winning his spurs at the Battle of Crécy, the Black Prince emerged as the finest commander of the Hundred Years' War. In 1356, the outbreak of civil war in France encouraged King Edward III to mount another invasion. On September 9, at Poitiers, the Black Prince defeated the French and captured King John II of France. The French agreed to a peace treaty at Brétigny in 1360. The first phase of the Hundred Years' War ended in complete triumph for England. 

During the first phase of the Hundred Years' War, King Edward III of England launched multiple invasions of France. However, King Philip VI of France managed to frustrate him by avoiding battle. Edward finally achieved a breakthrough in 1346. A large-scale, highly destructive raid--a chevauchée--forced Philip and the French to fight at the battle of Crécy.

The Hundred Years' War at first appeared to be an unequal contest. France was the largest, wealthiest and most populous kingdom in medieval Europe. By comparison, England appeared puny and weak. But during the first thirty years of the fourteenth century, a military revolution transformed the English armies into the most fearsome war machine in Christendom. A key aspect of this revolution was the rise to prominence of the yeoman archer armed with the longbow. 

Hostilities between the two greatest kingdoms in medieval Europe, England and France, had three causes: the English kings' possession of vast lands in France, an English claim to the French throne, and French support for Scotland. In 1337, hostilities escalated into open war. Neither kingdom expected the conflict to last until 1453. 

On October 25, 1415, the feast day of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, on a field near the village and castle of Agincourt, an English army under King Henry V defeated a much larger French host.  Agincourt would be the last great English victory of the long series of conflicts that came to be called, collectively, the Hundred Years' War. Five years after it, Henry V would claim the throne of France itself. Agincourt is also, thanks to William Shakespeare, the medieval battle with the greatest cultural legacy.  Many who are otherwise unfamiliar with the Hundred Years' War know of Harry the King and his band of brothers. Last and certainly not least, Agincourt is a touchstone of Englishness. It supposedly saw the plucky, tenacious ordinary Englishman, the yeoman, wield the trusty national weapon, the longbow, to humble the arrogant French chivalry. 

This episode of Great Battles in History plunges into the context, course, and consequences of the battle of Agincourt. Following this Part One introduction, Part Two details why and how the great kingdoms of France and England entered into the ruinous series of conflicts called the Hundred Years’ War. Part Three examines the English armies. It explains how a military revolution transformed these armies into the most fearsome fighting force in Christendom. In Part Four, we will trace the opening years of the Hundred Years’ War, a phase that culminated in the momentous battle of Crécy. Part Five focuses on the Black Prince, the outstanding commander of the war. We will see how his triumph at the battle of Poitiers brought England to the verge of complete triumph. Part Six describes how the French recovered and reversed the tide of the war. In Part Seven, we are introduced to King Henry V and will see how he revived the war against the French. Part Eight traces the events that led to Saint Crispin’s Day on the fields of Agincourt. Part Nine takes us to the bloody carnage that took place on those fields. The episode then concludes in Part Ten which tells how the English first won, then lost France. 

A note to listeners: I am posting parts one to five, the first half of the Battle of Agincourt episode, today. Parts six to ten  will appear in the coming days. Thanks so much for your patience. I hope you enjoy the episode.

When I published the original Complete Episode of Hattin, I made a mistake: I omitted Part Five from the episode. Here is the corrected version. The newly included part begins at 1:34:57. Profuse apologies, faithful listeners. 

Trailer for Episode Four, the Battle of Agincourt, coming in June.

The music is L'Homme Armé (The Armed Man), a fifteenth-century French chanson (public domain) and Red by Scott Buckley (https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/mN5TUQsVGoQ).

The complete episode of the Battle of Hattin, combining parts one to eight. 

 If you are enjoying this podcast, please rate it wherever you are listening. And I would love to hear from you! If you have any questions, or comments, please write to greatbattleshistory@gmail.com.

After Hattin, the Crusader States lay at Saladin’s mercy. The Muslim warlord swept into the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cities and castles fell to his armies. On October 2, 1187, he entered Jerusalem. Yet Saladin was unable to seize all of the Franks' ports. The Third Crusade, led by the formidable King Richard the Lionheart of England, was able to enter the Middle East and save the Crusader States from complete conquest. In the century after Hattin, crusading reached its climax. The Crusades would only come to an end in 1291, when a new Muslim power, the Mamluks of Egypt, captured Acre, the last remnant of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

After the death of the Leper King Baldwin IV in 1185, the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem fell into turmoil. Two years later, Saladin invaded with a massive army.  To face him, Guy de Lusignan, newly crowned king of Jerusalem, mustered every man who could bear arms.  On July 4, 1187, the two armies met beneath the Horns of Hattin. At the end of the day, the host of Jerusalem had been wiped out.

An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub—better known in the West as Saladin—would emerge as the greatest of all the Muslim warlords of the Crusades. He began his career as a Kurdish officer in the service of Nur al-Din. In 1169, he seized power in Egypt and overthrew the Fatimid Caliphate. Then, following the fortuitous death of Nur al-Din in 1174, he began the conquest of Syria. In time, he would construct an empire that extended from North Africa to Mesopotamia. He would also become the champion of the jihad against the Crusader States and engage in fierce wars against the forces of the Kingdom of Jerusalem led by the Leper King Baldwin IV and Prince Reynald de Chatillon.  

 From the earliest days, the Crusader States fought to break out of the narrow confines of the Mediterranean coast and conquer the Muslim hinterlands of the Middle East. At first, they could exploit Muslim disunity. Beginning in the middle of the twelfth century, however, the powerful warlord Imad al-Din Zengi unified Syria under his rule. Zengi’s son, Nur al-Din, then became the champion of a holy war—a jihad—against the infidels.

The armies of the Crusader States were the finest and most formidable western fighting forces of the Middle Ages. Their potency was based on their adaptation of European military techniques to the challenges and conditions of the Middle East. 

A crucial reason for the success of the First Crusade was Muslim disunity. In the 1090s, the Seljuk Empire that ruled the heart of the Islamic world fell into crisis and civil war. The Middle East fragmented into innumerable mini-states ruled by warlords. The power of these warlords was based on their command of armies of some of the finest fighting men of the premodern age: Turkic nomad horse archers.      

In 1095, Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade. Four years later, the crusaders conquered Jerusalem. In this part of the episode, we will examine why Europeans took up the cross and how they succeeded in accomplishing their goal of capturing Jerusalem. We will also look at the states the Crusaders established in the lands they conquered.

The Battle of Hattin is the most famous battle of the Crusades. On July 4, 1187, the army of the Muslim warlord Saladin destroyed the host of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Horns of Hattin. In the battle’s aftermath, Saladin overran the Crusader States. On October 2, he entered Jerusalem. Yet Hattin was not a decisive battle that ended the Crusades. It ushered in a century of renewed and intensified holy war.

 This episode begins by examining the First Crusade and the establishment of the Crusader States. Then it looks at the armies of the Crusaders and the Muslims. It traces the wars between them, which culminated in the rise of the Muslim champion Saladin.  The episode next takes the listener through the battle of Hattin to its bloody climax beneath the shadow of the Horns. It concludes by examining how Hattin led to the crescendo and climax of crusading.  

 A note to the listener: I am posting parts one to four, the first half of the Battle of Hattin episode, today. Parts five to eight will appear in the coming days. Thanks so much for your patience. I hope you enjoy the episode.

Trailer for episode three of Great Battles in History, the Battle of Hattin, coming in February. 

The music is Prince of Persia by Zapac (c) copyright 2020 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial  (3.0) license. 
http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Zapac/62569 

In 216 BCE, the Roman Republic made a maximum military effort. It raised the largest army in its history and sent it to destroy Hannibal Barca. The Carthaginian warlord also wanted to fight a decisive battle. On August 2, the Roman and Carthaginian armies clashed near the hill town of Cannae in southern Italy. At the end of the day, the Roman army had been completely wiped out.

After Cannae, Hannibal was at the zenith of his success. Yet in the years after the battle, he squandered all his opportunities for final victory over Rome. Meanwhile, the Romans recovered from their crushing defeat. More importantly, they formulated a strategy that countered Hannibal’s battlefield genius. At last, in Scipio Africanus, the Romans found a general who could match the Carthaginian warlord. In 202 BCE, Africanus defeated Hannibal at the Battle of Zama. Carthage had once again been defeated. This time there would be no recovery. Fifty-six years later, in the Third Punic War, Rome destroyed Carthage. 

Rome declared war on Carthage in 218 BCE, beginning the Second Punic War. Hannibal immediately put in motion a bold and risky plan. He marched his army from Spain across southern Gaul, crossed the Alps, and fell on Italy like a thunderbolt. In the next two years, he won brilliant victories at the Trebia and Lake Trasimene. Shocked by their defeats, the Romans appointed a Dictator, Fabius Maximus. Nicknamed the Delayer, Fabius avoided battle with Hannibal until the Romans had regained their strength and confidence.

After being defeated in the First Punic War, Carthage was reduced to an African city-state. Its remarkable revival was initiated by Hamilcar Barca, the most successful Carthaginian general and de facto ruler of the republic. Hamilcar and his family, the Barcids, conquered a new empire in Spain. In 221 BCE, Hannibal Barca, son of Hamilcar, came to power in Spain and Carthage. Inheriting the superb army that his Barcid predecessors had built, he immediately showed flashes of genius. Then, in 220 BCE, he received a fateful embassy from Rome.

War was not inevitable between Rome and Carthage. But in 264 BCE, they were drawn into conflict over Sicily. The result was the First Punic War, a twenty-three-year-long struggle that pushed both republics to their limits. In the end, Rome was triumphant and Carthage humbled.

The Roman legions are the most famous fighting force of the ancient world. In this part of the podcast, we will examine how the legions of the Punic Wars were raised, organized, trained and armed. Above all, we will see how they fought. In doing so, we shall catch a glimpse of the fierce face of Roman battle. 

By the third century BCE, the Western Mediterranean was dominated by two great republics, Carthage and Rome. From its matchless position on the coast of present-day Tunisia, Carthage dominated commerce in the Western Mediterranean basin. Its navy ruled the waves from the straits of Sicily to the Pillars of Hercules. It also ruled a considerable land empire that included much of North Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia. Rome was a fast-rising star—dynamic, vigorous, and aggressively expansionist. It had just recently imposed its dominion over most of Italy. Traditionally, Carthage and Rome have been portrayed as diametric opposites. In reality, they had much in common.

A note to listeners: In addition to the complete episode, I am publishing the Battle of Cannae in eight parts. 

On August 2, 216 BCE, at Cannae in southern Italy, the largest army ever fielded by the Roman Republic was wiped out by the Carthaginian warlord Hannibal Barca and his army of African, Spanish, and Gallic veterans. The battle of Cannae is a tactical masterpiece that has been studied ever since by scholars and soldiers. It remains a byword for slaughter, for the total annihilation of an army. For Hannibal, Cannae confirmed that he was one of the greatest military geniuses in history. It also brought him to the brink of final triumph over Rome. For the Romans Republic, Cannae was the darkest hour in its history. 

On August 2, 216 BCE, at Cannae in southern Italy, the Carthaginian warlord Hannibal Barca and his army of veteran African, Spanish, and Gallic mercenaries destroyed the largest force ever fielded by the Roman Republic. Since then, Cannae has been studied by scholars and soldiers as a tactical masterpiece—a perfect battle. It remains a byword for slaughter, for the total annihilation of an army. For Hannibal, Cannae confirmed that he was one of the greatest captains in military history. It also brought him to the brink of final triumph over Rome. For the Roman Republic, Cannae was its darkest hour.

This episode begins by examining Rome and Carthage and how they came into conflict. Then it traces the rise of Hannibal Barca. It follows him and his superb army as they march across western Europe, storm over the Alps, and fall upon Italy like a thunderbolt. The episode next plunges into the fighting at Cannae, which culminates in the horrific slaughter of the Roman legions. It concludes by explaining how Hannibal won a great victory but did not know how to use it.

 If you are enjoying this podcast, please rate us wherever you are listening. And I would love to hear from you! My email address is greatbattleshistory@gmail.com.

The Battle of Cannae. Coming in September.

After the Persian wars, the Spartans transformed the Battle of Thermopylae from a defeat into a heroic last stand that paved the way for final victory. The legend of Thermopylae then became part of the cultural heritage of the western world. It has proven astonishingly useful and malleable, being taken up for strikingly different ends by people as varied as French revolutionaries, Texan rebels, British imperialists, and Nazis. Today, popular culture entertainments such as Frank Miller’s award-winning comic 300and the movie version of it by Zak Snyder ensure that the Thermopylae legend remains vividly alive. 

Thwarted by Leonidas and his advance guard at Thermopylae, the Persians faced the failure of their invasion. Their mastery of intelligence and espionage now came to their rescue when a Greek traitor informed them of a way around the Greek position. The climax of the Battle of Thermopylae saw the Persian army overwhelm and wipe out Leonidas’ force. Following their victory, the Persians swept down into southern Greece and occupied Athens. But then came the turning point: the Athenian admiral Themistocles lured the Persian navy into the narrow straits of Salamis and destroyed it. The next year, the Greek resistance won two more battles at Plataea and Mycale. The Persian invasion was over.

As the Persians bore down on Greece, the city-states of the resistance decided to use their army to block the pass of Thermopylae. At the same time, their fleet would confront the Persian navy in the nearby waters off Artemisium. Before the Greek forces could set out, disaster struck: the Olympic and Carneian religious festivals imposed a taboo on war-making. At this moment of supreme crisis, King Leonidas of Sparta led out an advance guard to hold Thermopylae. In two days of intense fighting on land and sea, the Greeks managed to stop the Persian advance.   

During the second half of the sixth century BCE, Persian expansion encroached on the Greek world. In 499 BCE, Athens sent military aid to Greeks rebelling against the Great King. In retaliation, Great King Darius mounted the first Persian invasion of Greece. In 490 BCE, the Athenians defeated this invasion at the Battle of Marathon. Darius’s son Xerxes then planned to conquer all of Greece with a massive army and a huge fleet. Just thirty Greek states, led by Athens and Sparta, banded together to resist the invaders.

Originally just a minor tribe from the southern mountains of Iran, the Persians embarked on a spectacular career of conquest that led to the creation of the superpower of the ancient world. The Great Kings of Persia were masters of grand strategy, logistics, and espionage. At their command was a vast army of dazzling ethnic diversity and imposing fighting power. Yet this army had a fatal weakness: it could not withstand a hoplite charge.  

By the fifth century BCE, the Greek world stretched from the Black Sea to the shores of southern France. It was divided into thousands of fiercely independent city-states. The major Greek city-states had developed a distinctive way of fighting based on heavily armed and armored infantrymen called hoplites arrayed in the serried ranks of the phalanx and closing with their enemies to fight in hand-to-hand combat. The unquestioned masters of this Greek way of war were the Spartans. 

Around 431 BCE, Herodotus of Halicarnassus wrote up his Inquiry—in Greek, Historia—in which he sought to explain the origins and course of the conflicts between the Persians and the Greeks. This work inaugurated the western historical tradition and earned for its author the title Father of History. We’ll examine who Herodotus was, how he came to write his History,and why it is the indispensable source for the Persian Wars and the Battle of Thermopylae.  

In the late summer of 480 BCE, a Greek force of 1,000 hoplites from Thebes, Thespiae, and, most famously, Sparta, under the command of the Spartan king Leonidas, was surrounded and wiped out in the pass of Thermopylae by the invading Persian army of Great King Xerxes. The Battle of Thermopylae is the most well-known battle of the ancient wars between the Greeks and the Persians. It is also the most famous last stand in history. This episode examines the Greeks and the Persians, how they came into conflict, the events that led to their clash at Thermopylae, the three days of fighting in the pass, and the consequences of the battle. It concludes by tracing how Thermopylae was transformed into a legend of heroic sacrifice that resonates in Western culture right down to the present day.

A note to the listener: This episode is available either as a single recording or in eight shorter parts. 

The introduction to the podcast.