The Hundred Years’ war (1337 – 1453) between England and France was one of the most important events in European history, because it showed how small professional army using specialized weapons could defeat much larger opponent. The war was all about disputing the heir to the throne. It all originally started because of the death of Charles IV of France, died in 1328 and he does not have a legal heir to the throne.
Edward III of England somehow believed that he had the right to have the throne through his mother. The French did not want a foreigner to be the heir, so Philip VI of French decided that he ought to be the king, due to the Salic law, a woman cannot pass the right to rule to their sons. The disagreement between the two sides was what caused the war. There were some major events during the century war, which is the Battle of Sluys, when the French invading England, however, England won the battle. The next battle was the Battle of Crecy. After the Battle of Sluys, all the following wars were fought in France. In the battle of Sluys, the battle took place around the harbour between Zeeland and West Flanders.
England at the time had more advantages than the France, for example, the number of ships and the weapons such as longbow. In the Battle of Crecy, it was happened in France and to the total death of the French was 14,000 over 35,000 soldiers and total death of the English was 200 over 16,000 soldiers, after all, Philip VI have to escape from the war with major injured from the disaster. Once again, the England dominates the war by their amazing weapon, which was the longbow.
At the beginning of the war, France seems like dominated England over the size of the population. At the time, France had about 17 million people and England only had 4 million people. However, surprisingly, England had more victories in most of the battles between the two countries. At the end, the century war, that is known the Hundred Years’ war ended on October 19th, 1453, with the surrender of the Bordeaux leaving Calais last English man in France. In every war, technics are very significant in order to win the war and so is the weapon. The England did a remarkable thing, which was dominating the France in most of the battles, even though; the French population was way higher than the England. In most of the battles, English soldiers were trained professionally to use the longbow, which was a long ranged that can shoot to 200 yards (183meters), man-sized accuracy and with the speed of 12 aimed shots per minutes.
Last but not least, the longbow is cheaper than the crossbow that was used by the French when the invasion happened. In the other hand, crossbow was used by the mercenaries, little loyal to their customers, crossbow was slow to load, it took the shooter 45 seconds to span and shoot and the shooting ranged was way shorter than the longbow, which was only 120 yards. The last disadvantage was it took more budgets to make crossbow than the longbow. In conclusion, the war last for century just because of the disagreement for the heir of the throne and England was the last man standing. An extraordinary result, which makes England, won the war even though France dominating in the number of people.
Longbow took and important role in the war, since in most of the battles, England won because of using this weapon.
