Why did William win the battle of Hastings? On October 14th 1066, a battle took place in Hastings, which is now known as the battle of Hastings. King Edward had just passed away and as there were no blood relatives to become the new heir to the throne, the next king would either have been William, Duke of Normandy, who was a distant cousin of king Edward’s or Harold, King Edward’s brother in-law. There was only one way to resolve this problem. That was to do battle .
Why William duke of Normandy won the battle of Hastings The battle of Hastings led to a drastic and irreversible change in medieval England. The result of the battle was that William duke of Normandy with the help of his Norman supporters seized control of England’s throne and changed the culture and the way the country was ruled forever. William’s opponent of the battle was Harold Godwinson, the largest land owner in the country and a man who had been king of England for less than a full year. This essay will examine the reasons why and how William won the throne. Other than Harold Godwinson, two other men were claiming the English throne; their names were William, Duke of Normandy and Harald Hardrada, a Viking from the north.
Harold might have won if he had waited but) he was defeated and killed in the battle of Hastings. William – “The Conqueror” marched to London, which quickly gave in and he was crowned king of England in Edward’s church of Westminister Abbey on Christmas Day, 1066. A new period has begun. There was an Anglo-Saxon rebellion against the Normans every year until 1070. The small Norman army marched from village to village, destroying places which it couldn’t control.
As well as all this, William had a store of the finest weapons in France. Leadership William was one of the bravest people of his time. When his army was having difficulties during the battle, he bravely led his army back up the hill to make another attack upon the English. Due to William's intelligence, he arranged his army in long rows, archers at the front to try and soften up the English's shield wall, foot-soldiers in the middle, and the cavalry at the back for a big attack.The retreating trick explained in the above paragraph also shows great leadership. Luck Luckily for William, the wind changed direction in his favour on his journey north to England.
Harold Godwinson Defeated Harald Hadrada at Stamford Bridge on the 25th of September 1066 because of his ability to lead such a large army of people, about fifteen thousand people fought for Godwinson, an entire six thousand more people than Harald Hadrada had. Godwinson also had better tactics than Hadrada and a wider array peasant warriors. Godwinson’s men where trained in all manners of warfare, some rode on horseback, some were archers, but most of them still were foot soldiers, wielding either swords or javelin-spears. They On the face of things, Hadrada would have would have never won the battle anyway, for Godwinson outnumbered his army almost two to one. Hadrada had a wall of warriors surrounding him, with their shields firmly interlocked, but against horses, this was still not going to be the easy win that they were used to.
He was of the belief that he was the rightful ruler of England. He was an heir to the King Magnus, this king had ruled before Edward the Confessor seized his throne. They all fought battles towards the throne. For all of Harold’s efforts to build armies, castles and vessels he was slain in an early battle. The English retreated and eventually accepted William of Normandy as victorious and their
Alatheus and Saphrax army was nearby and could not be seen by the Romans and they also had a large portion of the Gothic cavalry. This meant that when the battle did commence they arrived just as they Roman army had fully committed all its troops. This meant that when the Romans were clearly defeated they could not retreat because they were surrounded by the heavy Gothic cavalry meant that there infantry got almost completely annihilated it was said by Emperor Valen that he lost 40000 men. As you can see the Gothic forces in red remained very defensive until their cavalry arrived this then meant that the Roman infantry which were progressing well into the Gothic line. This was changed when the cavalry arrived who quickly pushed of the Roman light cavalry before surrounding the Infantry and annihilating them.
Napoleonic Warfare Analysis The Waterloo Campaign started on June 15th, 1815 and was completed or decided on June 18th, 1815, only three days later. This battle happened to be one of the most decisive battles in Napoleon Bonaparte’s career. The defeat at Waterloo basically ended Napoleon’s rule as the emperor of the French. The battle had arose because of other countries favoring the Seventh Coalition, formed to be against the French. So the Prussian Army, lead by General Gebhard von Blucher and the Anglo-Allied Army, lead by the Duke of Wellington decided to mobilize and conduct a coordinated invasion against the French in 1815.
He then continued to level out the plain so it was now flat, in preparation for his scythed chariots, whose advantage would be that they could cut the opposing forces in half with their blades or at least make holes in the opposing forces. Perhaps Darius’ biggest mistake in preparing for the battle was keeping his men awake and alert the night before the battle. He had heard of Alexander’s tendency to attack upon surprise, and was wary for letting his guard down or his forces rest. Arrian tells us that this was the main reason for Darius’ loss, and with this point we can do no more than concur wholeheartedly. Alexander was perhaps a little more intelligent when preparing for the battle.
The reason for William I’s success in the Battle of Hastings revolves around three main factors: firstly and most importantly, Harold Godwinson’s mistakes before and during the fight, secondly the preparations that William took to increase chances of victory, and thirdly the Duke of Normandy’s war tactics pitted against Harold’s in battle. A significant point that brought about Harold’s failure was the way he responded to William the Conqueror’s invasion to the south. After fighting a very successful battle in the North at Stamford Bridge against Harold Hardrada and Tostig, his army, though satisfied, would have been exhausted and sluggish from its aftermath. Thus, rather than rushing back to prevent William from reaching London upon hearing that he and his Norman army had begun to ravage the neighbouring lands at Hastings, it may have been a much more rational idea to rest and wait for reinforcements. Since Harold’s brothers-in-law Edwin and Morcar were also marching south by the time Harold was at Hastings, so it would not have been difficult to draw thousands more men and starve out William than to go head-on into battle immediately.