Physiological effects of wearing armour and heat

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

At the Battle of Agincourt (1415) the Duke of York seems to have died of a 'heart attack' brought on by the heat of battle". While this assumption is made without proper medical protocol of course, it well illustrates that the concerns on these matters were at hand.

Hi Jim and all,

This is quite an interesting topic!

Still on Agincourt and this time viewing it from the side of the French, we read this eyewitness account from one Jehan de Wavrin, son of a Flemish knight (his father and older brother fought on the side of the French, and both died at Agincourt that day) --

"The place was narrow, and very advantageous for the English, and, on the contrary, very ruinous for the French, for the said French had been all night on horseback, and it rained [the whole night and for several days before], and the pages, grooms, and others, in leading about the horses, had broken up the ground, which was so soft that the horses could with difficulty step out of the soil. And also the said French were so loaded with armour that they could not support themselves or move forward. In the first place they were armed with long coats of steel, reaching to the knees or lower, and very heavy, over the leg harness, and besides plate armour also most them had hooded helmets; wherefore this weight of armor, with the softness of the wet ground, as has been said, kept them as if immovable, so that they could raise their clubs with great difficulty, and with all these mischiefs there was this, that most of them were troubled with hunger and want of sleep."

From Wikipedia, we read of more details. And as noted from many sources, it was not really the heavy armour per se that was the problem. Rather simplistically, it was allegedly the mud:

"Such heavy armour allowed them to close the 300 yards or so to the English lines while being under what the French monk of Saint Denis described as 'a terrifying hail of arrow shot'.[26] However they had to lower their visors and bend their heads to avoid being shot in the face (the eye and airholes in their helmets were some of the weakest points in the armour), which restricted both their breathing and their vision, and then they had to walk a few hundred yards through thick mud, wearing armour which weighed 50–60 pounds.[27]

"The French men-at-arms reached the English line and actually pushed it back, with the longbowmen continuing to fire until they ran out of arrows and then dropping their bows and joining the melee (which lasted about three hours), implying that the French were able to walk through the fire of tens of thousands of arrows while taking comparatively few casualties. The physical pounding even from non-penetrating arrows, combined with the slog in heavy armour through the mud, the heat and lack of oxygen in plate armour with the visor down, and the crush of their numbers, meant they could 'scarcely lift their weapons' when they finally engaged the English line however.

"When the English archers, using hatchets, swords and other weapons, attacked the now disordered and fatigued French, the French could not cope with their unarmoured assailants (who were much less hindered by the mud). The exhausted French men-at-arms are described as being knocked to the ground and then unable to get back up.

"As the battle was fought on a recently ploughed field, and there had recently been heavy rain leaving it very muddy, it proved very tiring to walk through in full plate armour. The French monk of St. Denis describes the French troops as 'marching through the middle of the mud where they sank up to their knees. So they were already overcome with fatigue even before they advanced against the enemy'.[21] The deep, soft mud particularly favoured the English force because, once knocked to the ground, the heavily armoured French knights struggled to get back up to fight in the melee. Barker (2005) states that several knights, encumbered by their armour, actually drowned in it [some sources say that the Duke of York was one of them]. Their limited mobility made them easy targets for the volleys from the English archers. The mud also increased the ability of the much more lightly armoured English archers to join in hand-to-hand fighting against the heavily armed French men-at-arms."

As to what happens to those tons of armour in the aftermath of the battle, we refer back to this firsthand account of Jehan de Wavrin:

"And the English archers busied themselves in turning over the dead ... and they carried the armour of the dead by horseloads to their quarters ....

"When evening came the King of England [Henry V], being informed that there was so much baggage accumulated at the lodging places, caused it to be proclaimed everywhere with sound of trumpet that no one should load himself with more armour than was necessary for his own body, because they were not yet wholly out of danger from the King of France [the French were reported to be regrouping, and Henry V was fearing another attack; and it must recalled that the English were vastly outnumbered, anywhere between 1-6 to 1-10] ... the King further ordered that all the armour that was over and above what his people were wearing, with all the dead bodies on their side, should be carried into a barn or house, and there burned altogether ....

"Next day, which was Saturday, the King of England and his whole army ... passed through the scene of the slaughter [the killing of the French prisoners]... and King Henry stood there, looking at the pitiable condition of those dead bodies, which were quite naked, for during the night they had been stripped as well as by the English as by the peasantry."

Agincourt is not exactly about the the effects of wearing armour and heat. But I thought that the effect of wearing armour in a muddy battlefield is as interesting academically as well.

This has become quite a long post. Thanks for reading this far!

PS - Some say that the the Duke of York actually died from drowning while stuck in mud in his heavy armour. Overall in the battlefield, the mud was reportedly anywhere from ankle-deep to waist-deep. And then the Duke of York who was no longer a spring chicken at the time, was reportedly fat, too. Would there be authoritative sources that support this? Thanks.

[migueldiaz]

Rummaging through my old pics, I found these which I snapped at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) when I went there last year.

Now I have no idea as to the era and as to which countries these armours are from!

Just the same, I thought I can post these pics, in order for us to better visualize the subject.

PS - I have many other pics of the armours displayed in that museum. Now if only I can find them ...

[Jim McDougall]

Miguel, absolutely beautifully done! Thank you so much for the outstanding detail on Agincourt, which gives us even more perspective. Actually, in reading these accounts I can almost visualize all of this much more vividly.
I had not even taken into the account mud and field conditions.

The lack of oxygen in closed helmets I had heard of, and I think if one placed one of those iron buckets over your head and then tried to complete something with any degree of exertion it would be minutely an example.

I think that one of the best books I have read that describes these battle conditions is "Face of Battle" by John Keegan. He too adds this kind of depth, and understanding of the human experience endured. While we can view and admire armour in static collections, it is often difficult for many to think of what it was really like for the man inside.


Fernando, thank you so much for the notes on these conditions in combat zones, which also more clearly gives us perspective as well, and I can only say I admire you and all the men who served as medics. The thin thread of life was well guarded by medics in unbelievable conditions, at the risk of thier own, and you all deserve the highest gratititude and respect.


Miguel, nice shots of the Met!! Thank you!


All best regards,
Jim

[Paul Macdonald]

Aye, a good thread and one that brings home realities of combat equipment and environment.

I used to take part in late C15th re-enactment some years ago. The largest annual UK medieval re-enactment was and I believe still is Tewksbury.




This was a great adventure to partake in and could also be a fair test of fitness and endurance given the conditions.

A couple of years saw it in sweltering heat, which saw many dropping like flies with heat exhaustion and/or blacking out. I threw up myself once in full kit, but to be fair, the combination of a hard battle under hard conditions after a hard night in the beer tent lead to my momentary tactical retreat.

One year, I remember one fellow in a pig face bascinet -



Conditions - Decidedly wet underfoot following rain during the night and morning.
Situation - He falls face down with one or two others on top of him.
Result - His pig face stuck firmly in the mud, water rapidly filled in through the vent holes and he nearly drowned in a few inches of muddy puddlewater.

These served as stark reminders that it wasn`t all just about going out there and having a jolly good time, but that all eventualities had to be accounted for given the effects of armour in various atmospheric conditions.

[fearn]

Thanks Paul,

Great story and good warning. I'm not sure what's wrong with drinking hard the night before a battle. Sounds properly medieval to me!

Incidentally, that story about the mishap with the bascinet (along with the story of Agincourt) also answers why they didn't fight in the cool season unless they could help it. That reason is mud. Mud was one of the great enemies of infantrymen. That probably trumps the need to get crops planted and harvested.

F

[migueldiaz]

Hi Jim, Paul, & Fearn,

Thanks for the additional insights given!

I always watch those Discovery Channel and National Geographic programs analyzing plane crashes and other aviation disasters. For me the lesson invariably is that a catastrophe is always due to the confluence of little things, which little things by themselves singly would not be such a big deal.

Seldom does a disaster occur that can be attributed to just a single big factor ... it's always the simultaneity of those little factors.

Agincourt is a total disaster for the French. And I agree with everybody's observation that it was a catastrophic defeat because it was similarly a confluence of those little problems ... which then pushed things to the so-called tipping point.

For me those 'little' things that conspired to the French's ruin that day would be:

[1] the successive days of rains, which created the muddy battlefield;
[2] the heavy armour of the French men-at-arms;
[3] the terrain that created the bottleneck [in the French troop's deployment], such that the French's numerical superiority was rendered useless; and
[4] the cocky attitude of the French.

It was said that the English archers' longbow played a key role in the defeat of the French at Agincourt. I think it was in the TV series 'Battlefield Detectives' that such notion was debunked (if I recall correctly the results of the simulation, it was demonstrated that the longbow arrow does not really penetrate the French's armour).

On item '4' above, we must have all read the accounts that the French knights were jostling over one another for the vanguard position, in eager anticipation of crushing their English foes that day.

And de Wavrin's account of what the French were doing on the eve of the battle seems to support the idea that the French were overconfident:

"... the King of England lodged in the said town of Maisoncelles, so near his enemies that the foremost of his vanguard saw them quite plainly, and heard them call each other by name, and make a great noise; but as for the English, never did people make less noise, for hardly did one hear them utter a word, or speak together.

"... and there continued a great noise of pages, grooms, and all kinds of people; such that , as it is said, the English could hear them plainly, but those on their side were not heard; for during this night all that could find a priest confessed themselves ....

" ... And to the royal banner of the Constable [d' Albret] all the great lords of the gathering gladly joined their own; namely, marshals, admirals, and other royal officers; and this night the French made great fires round the banner under which they were to fight ...."

And thus we read of accounts that some (or many??) of the French were lacking sleep on the day of the battle.

So Paul and Fearn, can we surmise then that the French had been partying all night on the battle's eve, such that physically and mentally they did not prepare themselves for the battle?

Then again, factor no. 4 singly cannot be it. Other things have to conspire as well, to have that perfect storm.

PS - Jim, I have read John Keegan's book, The Face of Battle. I was actually trying to look for my copy, before making the posts, but I seemed to have misplaced the book. Yes, it's a great reading

[Jim McDougall]

Beautifully put Miguel! that is the most concise summary of this battle I have seen, and I agree, factors that brought the results came together in the analogic situation that has in recent years been described as 'the perfect storm'.
Thank you again for the well written detail.

Keegan described the situation well, and yours seals the deal!!

All the best,
Jim

[katana]

Originally Posted by migueldiaz

......
For me those 'little' things that conspired to the French's ruin that day would be:

[1] the successive days of rains, which created the muddy battlefield;
[2] the heavy armour of the French men-at-arms;
[3] the terrain that created the bottleneck [in the French troop's deployment], such that the French's numerical superiority was rendered useless; and
[4] the cocky attitude of the French.

Hi Miguel ,
surely, Henry V chose this defensive position for the very reason it would 'restrict' the advancing French. Perhaps I have 'read' your comment wrongly ...but saying 'little' things that conspired to....suggests that this happened by 'chance'. The French were surely aware of this 'tactical' position, if not they must have forgotten the old saying...."he who forgets the past is doomed to repeat it".... or were unaware of the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae

Regards David