Trailer for Episode Six, the Battle of Nagashio, coming soon.

On October 7, 1571, the fleets of the Christian Holy League and the Ottoman Empire clashed near Lepanto off the west coast of Greece. Lepanto was the largest battle on land or sea in Europe in the sixteenth century. During it, over 130,000 combatants had crewed some 500 oared warships. At the battle’s end, at least 35,000 Ottomans and 8,000 Christians had lost their lives. Lepanto was also the climax of a ferocious fifty-year-long struggle waged by the greatest naval powers of the day for domination of the Mediterranean Sea. On one side were Spain, the first global empire in history, and Venice, a fabulously wealthy merchant republic. On the other side was the Sublime State of the House of Osman—the Ottoman Empire—a dynamic Muslim polity that ruled a domain stretching from Algeria to Mesopotamia. Last but not least, Lepanto was the swan song of the naval technology that had dominated the Mediterranean Sea for over two thousand years: the war galley.  

In the coming weeks, I will also be posting this episode in shorter parts.

Trailer for Episode Five, the Battle of Lepanto, coming in January 2022. The music is Havada Bulut Yok by Turku, Nomads of the Silk Road , licensed under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

The complete episode of Agincourt, including parts one to ten.

Agincourt was an overwhelming victory for Henry V and England. After it, the English went on to conquer Normandy. Then, in 1420, Henry forced the French to agree to the treaty of Troyes, which made him the heir to the French throne. But his premature death in 1422 turned the tide of the Hundred Years' War. The French recovered and pushed their enemies out of France. By 1453, only Calais remained in English hands. The Hundred Years ' War was over. 

 

On October 24, 1415, the feast day of the twin saints Crispin and Crispinian, the English and French armies arrayed for battle on the muddy field of Agincourt. The action began when the English advanced and the longbowmen loosed a storm of arrows. When the fighting ended three hours later, the English had won an unexpected and total victory. 

After landing in Normandy, Henry V and the English army besieged the key port of Harfleur. The city fell following a six-week siege.  Henry then decided to carry out a swift dash across France to the English-held fortress-town of Calais. Along the way, the French sought to bring him to battle. On October 24, 1415, near the village of Agincourt, Henry found a massive French army blocking the route to Calais. The English army had no choice except to fight. 

In 1413, Henry V succeeded to the throne of England. An able statesman and experienced warrior, he was determined to restore the English lands in France and press the Plantagenet claim to the French throne. Meanwhile, France had plunged into a devastating civil war between two noble factions, the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. Taking advantage of this crisis, Henry landed in Normandy with a powerful army in August 1415. 

After the Battle of Poitiers, France's fortunes were at their lowest. In the 1360s, the new French king, Charles the Wise, led a remarkable recovery in political, financial and military strength. An English intervention in Spain then offered an opportunity to renew the Hundred Years' War. The French king and his Constable, the Breton knight Bertrand du Guesclin, carried out a spectacular reconquest that reduced English possessions in France to a remnant of Aquitaine. 

After winning his spurs at the Battle of Crécy, the Black Prince emerged as the finest commander of the Hundred Years' War. In 1356, the outbreak of civil war in France encouraged King Edward III to mount another invasion. On September 9, at Poitiers, the Black Prince defeated the French and captured King John II of France. The French agreed to a peace treaty at Brétigny in 1360. The first phase of the Hundred Years' War ended in complete triumph for England.