Battle of Agincourt (1415): Mud Hell – 6,000 English Peasants Slaughtered 20,000 French Nobles

On October 25, 1415, King Henry V faced annihilation. His 6,000 soldiers—mostly peasant longbowmen—were starving, sick with dysentery, and exhausted from a 250-mile march through enemy territory. Many were barefoot, dying from disease even as they formed battle lines. Facing them were at least 20,000 French soldiers, possibly 30,000, including 8,000 armored knights on warhorses—the finest heavy cavalry in Europe. The French outnumbered the English 3-to-1, possibly 5-to-1. They were fresh, well-fed, fighting on their own soil. By every calculation, the English should have been annihilated before noon. But Henry positioned his army in a narrow field between two woods where French numbers meant nothing. Then it rained. The battlefield turned into knee-deep mud that would prove more deadly than any weapon. Henry's 5,000 longbowmen planted sharpened wooden stakes and waited. The battle began when English archers shot 25,000-30,000 arrows in the first minute, provoking French cavalry to charge. Horses slowed by mud, stopped by stakes, shot by continuous arrow storms—the charge became disaster. French knights drowned in their own armor in the mud. Eight thousand dismounted French men-at-arms advanced on foot, exhausted before reaching English lines. They were packed so densely they couldn't use weapons. Men suffocated in the crush. Bodies piled four high. Knights at the bottom drowned in mud and blood. English archers dropped their bows and became executioners with lead mallets crushing helmets. In six hours, 7,000-10,000 Frenchmen died including thousands of nobles—the Constable d'Albret, Duke of Alençon, hundreds of counts and barons. English losses: 400-600. Then Henry ordered 1,500-2,000 French prisoners massacred, a war crime justified as military necessity. This is how 6,000 English peasants slaughtered 20,000 French nobles in mud hell—not through superior courage but through longbows, wooden stakes, rain-soaked terrain, and French tactical stupidity so profound it still defies comprehension six centuries later. #BattleOfAgincourt #Agincourt1415 #HenryV #HundredYearsWar #EnglishLongbow #MedievalWarfare #FrenchNobles #HistoricalBattles #BrutalHistory #MacabreHistory #MilitaryHistory #EnglishHistory #FrenchHistory #Longbowmen #MedievalBattles #Shakespeare #StCrispinsDay #MudHell 👉 Don’t forget to subscribe and hit the bell 🔔 so you never miss the darkest secrets of history!