The fact that most of the soldiers of the English army in the battle with the enemy at Agincourt were without pants is a historical fact. And the reason for this event was prosaic and vulgar. Whatever it was, but it was the British who won the victory. What exactly happened then, and how, in general, did the archers manage to defeat the French in a half-naked form?
1. March through the French lands
The Battle of Agincourt was one of the decisive ones in the Hundred Years War. Under the leadership of Henry V, the army went into central France from the mouth of the Seine. The French tried to destroy everything that was valuable in the way of the enemy. This was the so-called "scorched earth" tactic. The march was long, and the British ate whatever they could. Naturally, it was not without dysentery. Absolutely everyone suffered, including the bishop who followed the army team. As a result of the illness, he did not survive.
A hard long road, hunger, the desire to spend all the time in the bushes, the soldiers exhausted, made them miserable. As a result, Henry V sent part of the army that was not capable of fighting to England. The rest went further. In the Middle Ages, fanaticism reigned, and the soldiers, in principle, could not send the king to hell with his ambitions and desire to sit on the French throne. So they didn't scatter in different directions. The king's order is the law for the soldier.
The army, under the incessant rain that poured for several days, trudged forward in the mud. In such conditions, they had no opportunity to wash or dry their dirty pants. As a result, despite the fact that the weather in October 1415 was far from summer, the soldiers walked in their underwear or even without it. That is, below the waist, many of them were naked. And so it happened that most of them were without pants during the battle. Only part of the legs were cut off, constructing something that looked like legs.
2. Ratio 1: 5
Near a small village called Agincourt, the British and French met. And if in the first case the army consisted of 5,700 smelly, hungry, half-naked and emaciated people, then in the second it was 25 thousand excellent looking French.
It would seem that there should have been no doubts about the outcome of the battle. But here the factor of hopelessness played. People who had nothing to lose, since in the event of desertion or captivity, a difficult fate and even death awaited them, began to attack.
The Welsh archers carried huge bows and sharp spears. Taking position, the riflemen without pants stuck their spears straight ahead of them so that the French cavalry would not sweep them. Since the bows of the British shot farther than the French, they covered the enemy with a rain of arrows. It was not possible to attack the British on horseback, because the archers were protected by a palisade. The French sent in the infantry, naturally with good weapons.
But the arrows rushed at them - hand-to-hand fighting ensued. And nothing that they weren't wearing pants, but in their hands were clubs and short swords. And then the British saw their advantage. To defeat the manned French, it was enough for them to knock them over in the mud. Their armor did not allow them to rise.
This is how the British were able to defeat the army, exceeding their number by five times. At the same time, the losses of soldiers they had were minimal - up to two hundred people. The enemy lost thousands of soldiers. So the king got what he wanted, but as they say, be afraid of your desires. Henry V was never able to take the French throne. A few years later, during the siege of Mo, he received his payback - he contracted dysentery and died.
It will be no less interesting and useful to find out who or what made the knights be the first to climb the wall during the assault, if death awaited ahead.