Aside from poor leadership, there are a number of reasons why the French lost the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. According to the testimony of one eyewitness, Jehan de Wavrin, the son of a Flemish knight, the French occupied a poor position on the battlefield. As a result, it did not matter that there were considerably more French troops than English:
The French had arranged their battalions between two small thickets…The place was narrow, and very advantageous for the English, and, on the contrary, very ruinous for the French, for the said French had been all night on horseback, and it rained, and the pages, grooms, and others, in leading about the horses, had broken up the ground, which was so soft that the horses could with difficulty step out of the soil.
In addition, Wavrin tells us that the French wore so much armour that movement was almost impossible. (See the reference link provided).
Another reason for the French defeat comes from their choice of weapon. The French archers, for example, used the crossbow while the English used the longbow, a very different type of bow. The longbow could fire more arrows per minute, for instance, and reach a target over a far greater distance. This gave the English archers a considerable advantage on the battlefield and caused chaos among the French foot soldiers and horses.
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