Person
Jean II Le Maingre (Boucicaut)
Marshal of France
Life: 1366–1421
The marshal who brought the lesson of the last defeat and could not build into the choice of ground the width his plan required.
A marshal of long experience who had lived through the disaster of Nicopolis (1396) and been taken prisoner there. The French plan — dismount most of the men-at-arms and send cavalry at the flanks of the English archers — is thought to bear his hand. The reading was sound, but the plan assumed width in which to reach a flank, and in a narrow field that premise vanished. A proposal not to fight at all was raised at the council and did not carry. He was captured and died in England.
Strategic signature — the caution of the man who has seen it
Boucicaut was a marshal of long experience who had lived through the catastrophe of Nicopolis (1396) and been taken prisoner there. The French battle plan — dismount most of the men-at-arms, and send cavalry at the flanks of the English archers — is thought to bear his hand12.
At the council before the battle there was also a proposal not to fight: shadow the exhausted English and let hunger finish them. A frontal attack in a narrow field was chosen instead. Caution grounded in experience does not carry against honour and precedence — a shape this site keeps meeting. He was captured and died in England.
Recurring patterns
Bring last time's lesson
From Crécy, Poitiers and Nicopolis he planned to abandon the mounted charge and fight on foot. The reading was sound.
A plan depends on the ground
Sending cavalry at the archers' flanks requires width in which to reach a flank. In a narrow field that premise disappears.
It does not carry in a council
Experience and office notwithstanding, caution has little weight among great lords deciding together.
Strengths and limits
Learns from defeat and can plan to neutralise the enemy's strength.
He could not build the conditions his plan required — width, ground, control — into the choice of battlefield itself.
Connection to Agincourt
Kutuzov, Paullus at Cannae, Gravina, Paulus at Stalingrad — and now him. Sound caution losing to a structure makes its fifth appearance on this site.
Jean II Le Maingre, called Boucicaut. An illustration from the Nouveau Larousse Illustré of the 1870s — not a contemporary likeness. Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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