War Cruel and Sharp: English Strategy under Edward III, 1327-1360

by Clifford J. Rogers

A close study of the military and political strategies of Edward III and the Black Prince, whose great victories had by 1360 made England the foremost martial nation of Europe.

Contemporaries considered Edward III of England "the wisest and shrewdest warrior in the world", but he has not fared so well in the estimation of modern historians, many of whom have argued that he was a fine tactician but a poorstrategist. This is despite the fact that by 1360 the English had become the foremost martial nation of Europe; that famous victories had been won at Dupplin Moor, Halidon Hill, Crécy, and Poitiers; and David II of Scotland and Jean II of France were Edward's prisoners, and the French, with the Treaty of Brétigny, had agreed to surrender a third of their kingdom to his sovereign rule in exchange for peace.
In War Cruel and Sharp, Professor Rogers offers a powerfully argued and thoroughly researched reassessment of the military and political strategies which Edward III and the Black Prince employed to achieve this astounding result. Using a narrative framework, he makes the case that the Plantagenets' ultimate success came from adapting the strategy which Robert Bruce had used to force the 'Shameful Peace' on England in 1328. Unlike previous historians, he argues that the quest for decisive battle underlay Edward's strategy in every campaign he undertook, though the English also utilized sieges and ferocious devastation of the countryside to advance their war efforts.

CLIFFORD J. ROGERS is Professor of History, United States Military Academy, West Point.

Genres: History, British Literature, Medieval History, Medieval, War, Nonfiction, Military History

458 pages, Hardcover

First published December 7, 2000

About the author

Clifford J. Rogers is a professor of history at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He has also been a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Swansea University, an Olin Fellow in Military and Strategic History at Yale, and a Fulbright Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research in London.

Reviews

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting at times, but mind-numbingly detailed. Rogers is one of those old school writers who just kind of goes without subheadings or even laying out an argument per chapter. The "periscope moments" where he tells you the bigger picture of the argument or of history in that time period are rare and pretty much randomly inserted in the text. He also doesn't spare you a single detail of each campaign, down to pretty much every little Hamlet that was torched. Lastly, he assumes a lot of background knowledge on your part, so this book is not for beginners. For example, at the end of the book he says "and then the Jacquerie revolt happened," and just moves on, even though this was clearly important for the military side of things. Not helpful.

But as a study of strategy, this book is pretty interesting. Rogers portrays Edward III as a brilliant strategist who repeatedly defeated the much larger French forces in the Hundred Years War through the combination of the strategic offensive and the tactical defensive. E3 launched chevauchees, or these extended raids where the English burned everything, in order to lure the French into battle where the British tended to have the advantage because of their better infantry and longbowmen. But in those battles, E3 and the Black Prince managed to set themselves up on topographies that facilitated the tactical defense, forcing the French to come to them under a hail of arrow fire, exhausting and demoralizing themselves in the process. For such a long book, that's the essence of the argument. Kind of felt like this could have been an article. Recommended only for scholars of medieval warfare; too detailed and tedious for the lay reader.

[Ryan Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-argued (countering the mainstream of the historiography both old and recent) account of Edward III's campaigns, showing how the strategic lessons he learned fighting the Scots in his earlier years led to his ability to beat the French into the rather humiliating Treaty of Brétigny, despite ruling a country whose resources paled in comparison with those of his opponent. I completed the book convinced that Edward had deployed the perfect military strategy (eventually, anyway) to achieve his political aims (and thus illustrating Clausewitz's dictum that "War is the continuation of politics by other means.")

[Hugo Taylor Meade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Came across this book as it was cited in Mortimer’s work on Edward III. Immensely detailed and provides a level of depth in his descriptions of Edward’s various campaigns, that it rivals Sumption’s vast work. Drawing from several English and French chronologies, the book constructs a narrative that is both highly persuasive and a fitting contribution to the historiography on the early stages of the war. Rogers’ explanation of the 1340 financial crisis is an instance of the detailed analysis which he provides.