Blood Cries Afar (21 page)

By 23 July both sides had mustered their hosts: the coalition at Valenciennes, the French at Péronne. Philip led his army, totalling perhaps 1400 knights and 6000 infantry, through Cambrai and Douai to Flanders. Pillaging supplies for his army and burning what he could not use from his enemies’ lands, his intention was also to cut the allies’ lines of communication to the coast and also to prevent Otto’s force from joining with Salisbury’s. This move may have offered the possibility of the French launching a surprise attack on Otto’s rear, from the side he least expected, enabling the French to deal first with a much smaller force before engaging the main body of enemy troops: with John contained in Anjou and Otto’s army repulsed, Philip could hope either for victory against Salisbury or, more probably, Salisbury abandoning his campaign altogether, having already lost two of its three main elements. Imperial scouts were active, however, and informed Otto of French movements when he was at Valenciennes (from where he was pondering his advance on Paris), with Philip now behind him at Tournai by 26 July. Tournai was one of the two normal operational headquarters for French campaigns in Flanders (the other being Lille). It had been taken by the Flemish a year earlier, but was now recaptured by a French force working in advance of the main column. Otto countered by a move to a strong position at Mortagne, just seven miles to the south of the French position, which left Philip feeling that he had overreached himself as was now exposed to both Salisbury’s and Otto’s armies, the exact situation he had hoped to avoid. Despite both sides having good local geographical knowledge, many of the protagonists having estates in the region and local urban militias predominating in the armies, the two forces managed to pass each other unknowingly.

It is likely, as John France has suggested, that Philip was playing for time in the hope that the disagreements among the coalition leadership would lead to its collapse. Philip would also have anticipated the negative impact on the coalition from the defeat of John’s forces. William the Breton, characteristically but unconvincingly, depicts Philip as impatient to attack his enemy, only to be restrained by his military advisers (whom Philip almost invariably heeded).
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Instead the French made a rapid retreat along the Roman road to Lille early on 27 July. This suggests that it was never Philip’s plan to directly engage the enemy, but only to prevent them from joining forces; once he had failed in this, he withdrew his army. Many historians believe that Philip was actively seeking a decisive battle with the allies, but the Anonymous of Béthune, the author of the
History of William the Marshal
, and the Marchiennes accounts concur in that Philip was endeavouring to avoid contact with the enemy; Roger of Wendover’s narrative clearly indicates that the French had taken up a defensive rather than an aggressive position on the battlefield. Even more than most military commanders, the unheroic Philip appreciated the tactic of battle avoidance. However, despite William the Breton’s constant lapses into unobjective panegyrism, his account remains the best and fullest description of the battle, as he was eyewitness to the events that were to take place that fateful day.
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Sunday 27 July was a scorching summer’s day. Philip had sensibly stopped at the bridge of Bouvines, on the Tournai-Lille road. Here he had shade and, more importantly, his men and horses had a plentiful supply of water from the Marque flowing beneath the bridge. The refreshment was all the more welcome after the dusty rigours of almost constant marching in the summer heat. Philip carefully arranged a fortified camp. Meanwhile the coalition forces were also on the move to keep within striking distance of the French while still determining what course of action they should take and when. Philip’s scouts had informed him that the allied forces had struck camp, but he believed they were making for Tournai and not for him. The leadership of both sides was anxious about the gravity of what was at stake on such a momentous occasion. The tension was possibly less strained on the allies’ side. They were confident as they held their council of war, dividing up the regions of France between them as their spoils of imminent victory. Otto – who had by now joined up with the main force ahead of most of his troops – and Count Renaud of Boulogne were reluctant to initiate battle on a Sunday, especially as all their troops were not yet drawn up. A plan was discussed to allow the French to retreat in the hope that their morale would be sapped and the army would be further weakened by desertions, but this was rejected despite its merits. They were persuaded against hesitation by John’s leading mercenary, Hugh de Boves, who disparaged them for wavering and cast aspersions on their courage if they failed to attack Philip immediately. In a phrase employed by the energetic royal generals Henry II and Richard the Lionheart, Hugh warned them, ‘Delays are always dangerous when things are ready’; and added, for good measure, a sting in the tail with, ‘It is easier to talk than act.’
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They prepared for battle.

Hugh probably had three motivations for so forcefully exhorting the allies to adopt his strategy. First, in one sense, things
were
ready: Hugh wished to catch the French army, stretched out along three miles of the road, divided as it crossed the bridge (the potential efficacy of such a move can be evaluated by the crushing defeat suffered by the English against the Scots at Stirling Bridge in 1297). Secondly, and as he reminded his allies, they were beholden to King John for his generous payments in subsidising the campaign and therefore were honour-bound to deliver battle for John’s sake. The English King’s reverses in Anjou made a victory in the north even more imperative; if the cat-and-mouse movements of shadowing enemy troops continued there was a danger that the coalition might dissolve before it had played its full part. Finally, Hugh de Boves was a mercenary captain who had prospered under his paymaster John; of all the allies he had the least to lose and the most to gain. Wendover calls him ‘a brave soldier but a cruel man … he spared neither women nor young children’.
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The thought of fighting on a Sunday did not weigh heavily on his shoulders. The chroniclers make much of the blasphemy of fighting on the Lord’s day, especially William the Breton who never missed an opportunity to blacken the foe’s evil reputation, but too much of this has been made by both contemporaries and modern historians. Fighting on Sundays or holy days was far from uncommon: in 1264, Simon de Montfort spent Easter, the holiest event of the Christian calendar, storming the defences of Rochester and attacking its tower, and incurred very little censure for doing so.
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The decision to attack was perhaps swung by the perception that the French were in full retreat and thus were vulnerable.

While Philip was taking shelter from the sun under an ash tree, the allies arrived at Cysoing, a mile south-east of Bouvines, and, catching up with the French rearguard, lanched into them. In charge of the rearguard were Viscount Adam of Melun, Duke Eudes of Burgundy and Brother Guérin, Bishop-elect of Senlis. Guérin was a veteran Knight Hospitaller who now, at 58 years of age, was ready to take his place amongst the French episcopate. His experience of warfare made him an invaluable adviser to Philip, and he was instrumental in the battle that was about to take place. From his hill-top vantage point he saw the allies fast approaching. He instructed the Viscount to hold the enemy off with his light cavalry and crossbowmen. The Anonymous of Béthune offers a slightly different, and possibly more accurate, account. According to him the rearguard took up position in a small wood and delayed the enemy’s advance with crossbow fire. The rearguard struggled to catch up with the main army but had to stop and turn to face the enemy five times. It was soon hard-pressed; the allies were not intending to harass the retreating French column, but to destroy it. Guérin, assessing the seriousness of the situation, had ridden up the three-mile column to warn the king. Philip took counsel with his commanders, most of whom thought the march should continue, believing that Ferrand, who was leading the enemy attack, was not about to give battle; a minor deviation of Otto’s course (to find fording points across a stream) was misconstrued as an intention to avoid an engagement. Then Gérard la Truie came up the column to warn the King of the escalating combat. The French were in imminent risk of succumbing to the coalition’s intention of being caught stretched out, but now at the worst possible juncture with the army on either side of the River Marque. By this stage, most of Philip’s army had crossed, leaving a relatively small number of footsoldiers and the greater part of his cavalry dangerously exposed on the east side. It was made clear to the king, by Guérin above all, that battle avoidance was no longer an option: the French had to stand and fight.

Philip entered a nearby chapel to pray for victory. When he emerged the cry of ‘To arms!’ went up; armour was donned, bridles were tightened and echelons put into order. The majority of soldiers that had already crossed the bridge were recalled and the bridge itself, having just been reinforced to take the strain of the baggage train and the large numbers of men crossing, was now destroyed to harden the resolve of the French and to stem any thoughts of flight from the battlefield.

Roger of Wendover’s narrative diverges markedly from the other sources. He places Philip’s army within the fortified camp, behind the French wagons and carts. Although at odds with the other contemporary sources which tell of battle orders confronting each other on classical lines, Wendover’s slant does not lack plausibility. Such fortified camps were not new and were a common response to dangers faced by an army on the move, attaining their fullest development in the Hussite wars of the fifteenth century. In 1124, when also faced by an imperial invasion, Louis VI drew up wagons in circles, ‘like small castles’ according to the chronicler Suger, to allow tired and wounded soldiers to retire from battle to seek attention and to be refreshed by water. It may be that Wendover was confusing similar arrangements at Bouvines with the actual battlefield. At the Battle of Alençon in 1118, in which Henry I of England suffered a major defeat, Count Fulk of Anjou positioned his army within a fortified enclosure from which he made sorties against the enemy (a point to recall when considering Count Renaud’s tactics at Bouvines). And in 1197 when Philip was campaigning in Flanders, his opponents under William Marshal and Count Baldwin of Flanders explored the possibility of organising carts in a defensive barrier against him, from behind which battle could be offered. It is also worth reiterating Philip’s cautious and defensive nature and his hopes for battle avoidance. Intriguing though this possibility is for one of the most epic and best documented battles of the Middle Ages, the general conformity of the other major sources demands that they be taken as forming the basis for any consideration of Bouvines, with William the Breton’s eye-witness account providing the core (but not all) of what follows.
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It is prudent to assume, therefore, that the baggage camp took up its customary place behind the army and guarded it from surprise attack (aided at Bouvines by a clear view of the surrounding area and with greater protection afforded by adjoining marshes).

With the cavalry back across the river, Philip dispatched 700 of them towards Cysoing to counter the allies’ vanguard. This was effective: it forced the allies to halt and to organise an equal and opposing cavalry force under Count Ferrand. A classic cavalry engagement was to ensue, allowing the French to quickly move their troops to face the enemy where they arranged themselves smoothly into battle order less than a mile north-east of Bouvines. Philip took up his position at the centre of his arrayed forces, with the French national war banner, the Oriflamme of St Denis, set by him. There was consternation amongst the allies now they had lost the initiative. Otto’s men, engaged with the French rearguard and hoping to catch their foe unprepared at Bouvines bridge, were not themselves ready for pitched battle at this stage. Their own column, about four miles long, would take hours to be fully arranged into battle order as Count Renaud had earlier warned. Indeed, the Flemish sergeants from Bruges and Ghent were too far to the rear to play any part in the engagement, and the allies’ ability to fully utilise their tactical units was hampered by this incapacity to deploy all their forces. Nevertheless, Otto had the bulk of his forces with him and, having led them northwards, he likewise arranged his battalions which, like the French, were heavily dominated by infantry.

The two armies spread out and faced each other on a broad plain. In the best tradition of medieval bias, each side proclaimed itself to be heavily outnumbered by the enemy: this allowed victory to be magnified and defeat to be mitigated. Estimates give the allies superiority in numbers, further evidence for Philip’s attempt to avoid an engagement. The coalition comprised some 1300–1500 knights and 7500 infantry, opposing 1300 cavalry and 4000–6000 infantry for the French.
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However, a rough balance was probably created by the delay in bringing all the allied troops up to the battle. On this brilliant summer’s day the French had the advantage of facing south-east with the sun at their backs; the allies, facing north-west, had the sun shining directly into their eyes. Among the many banners and flags by which the various army units identified themselves, three stood out before all the others. On the allies’ side, looking positively demoniacal to William the Breton, was the imperial banner, a golden dragon and an eagle mounted on a
caroccio
, a war chariot. The French King displayed his two sacred banners: the golden fleur-de-lis on an azure background and the
oriflamme
, carried into battle by French monarchs, especially at times of national peril.

The banners were placed in the middle of each line with the commander-in-chief. These lines were arranged in the standard battle formation of three divisions which collectively stretched to perhaps 2000 paces across. With Otto at the centre of the imperial line was his personal bodyguard and imperial troops, positioned behind a phalanx of infantry. To his left was Ferrand of Flanders, whose battalion was dominated by light cavalry.
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It is hard to be certain about the precise course of action in the most confused, initial stages of the combat, but I believe that the Ferrand-Guérin cavalry encounter would have taken place in phases, from early contact through to the full onset of battle. Their initial contact, as mentioned above, allowed time for the armies to be drawn up on the battlefield, but I do not see this encounter as being constantly contested; the first lull, as the forces measured up to each other, and any subsequent ones, would likely have allowed the cavalry forces to draw up very roughly in the lines of battle. After cavalry waves attacked they would withdraw to reform, reorganise and rest, their mobility permitting them to shuffle into an overall position in the line of battle described here, even if not in perfect order. On the Emperor’s right wing were the knights and mercenaries of the Earl of Salisbury, Hugh de Boves and Renaud de Dammartin; their infantry was also to the fore. Directly opposite Otto was Philip, surrounded by his household troops with his loyal and veteran friend, William des Barres; when the communal infantry arrived on the scene they positioned themselves in front of Philip. To Philip’s left, facing de Boves, Salisbury and Boulogne, were Bishop Philip of Beauvais with his brother Count Robert de Dreux and their men, Thomas de St Valéry with his knights and infantry, and the forces of Ponthieu under their Count, William. On the right wing, under the command of Guérin and facing Ferrand, were Duke Eudes of Burgundy, Count Gaucher of St Pol, Viscount Adam de Melun, their troops and those of Champagne. Each of these warriors led their own cohorts of troops which facilitated coherency in command and combat.