Transcript:

Have you ever had to make a life and death decision that could determine the fate of your nation? No? Well today you are King Henry V, and you are outnumbered five to one. What will you do?

My name is Shaun McMillan, and this is the Best Class Ever. 

[intro music]

Last week we explained the situation that Shakespeare’s King Henry V found himself in at the battle of Agincourt. 

After successfully landing a fleet of warships and laying a siege to Harfleur King Charles of France offered to make a generous compromise, but you turned it down. Instead you continued to sweep across France. 

You, the young King Henry V of England, now find yourself in a terrible situation. 

The dauphin, or the French heir to the throne has suddenly appeared with an army 5 times larger than yours. He is openly taunting you and trying to humiliate you. What do you do?

Here are your three options

1. Safely Retreat and negotiate a surrender to try and recover some losses from this expensive failure.
2. Take some Extreme Personal Risk by offering to fight the war in a duel with the dauphin.
3. And lastly, the High Risk High Reward option where you either fight at 5 to 1 odds of losing, or employ an extremely risky strategy suggested by your most trusted advisor, Sir John Falstaff.

So now let’s explore the results of your various choices. 

The Safe Option

Context: When King Henry V arrived in Harfleur with a large fleet of warships King Charles was surprised. So King Charles of France offered a compromise. He would not give Henry the crown of France, but he would give him some small dukedoms—that is, small sub-regions within France—as well as the hand of his daughter, Catherine, in marriage if King Henry V agreed to leave France peacefully. 

But now that you are negotiating out of a position of weakness, the king of France is unlikely to make nearly as many concessions. This would ultimately be considered a loss. 

But at least you can escape with some dignity. The French were shocked by the English invasion because England had been caught up in civil war during the reign of the previous two kings. Now they have no choice but to consider you a threat. This at least will earn you some respect as a young new leader.

Ultimately King Henry V didn’t choose this option. He had risked a lot to get this far, and most of those risks had paid off. So it would seem reasonable for him not to compromise. This guy obviously wants to go down in history as a hero so he’s all in.

So let’s visit the other two options. 

Extreme Personal Risk Option

Context:. Just before becoming king, Hal wanted to prove himself to his father. To do so he took an army and marched against Hotspur his archrival. Hotspur was a valiant young man like himself and was leading a rebellion together with some Scottish warlords against the king, Hal’s father King Henry IV. Prince Hal, who would soon become king Henry V, offered to settle the war in a one-on-one duel with Hotspur. Hotspur was known for his pride and hot-headedness so he agreed. Prince Hal won the duel, successfully put down the rebellion, and earned the respect of his father just before his father died according to Shakespeare’s version of the story. 

Now, as King Henry V, it makes sense that he would offer to settle the battle of Agincourt the same way, but offering to settle the war in a one-on-one duel with the heir to the French crown known which in French we refer to as the Dauphin. King Henry argued that it would save many Christian soldiers from having to spill their blood. It put him at great personal risk, but it was not nearly as risky as going into all-out-battle when his troops were so badly outnumbered by the French. This option would at least remove the Dauphin’s advantage. 

Consequence: King Henry V did in fact make such an offer. But France had been humiliated by this young king’s invasion, so the dauphin took this as yet another opportunity to humiliate King Henry. He replied to King Henry’s request with, “Oh what’s wrong? Are you scared? I demand that you surrender to me!”

So we can now eliminate this strategy from the list of available options as well. At this point he must either retreat or go to war.

High Risk High Reward Option

Context: As we already mentioned, King Henry V is both outnumbered five to one and he is an invading force. The invading force is always at a disadvantage militarily because

• The invading force doesn’t know the terrain as well
• Operating far from home is expensive and dangerous because resupply lines must be kept secure
• The enemy will fiercely defend their homes because they have much to lose
• The enemy can retreat to familiar territory and easily prolong the war until they have even more advantage

Falstaff’s Alternative Strategy

King Henry’s advisors suggested he negotiate even if he lost the upperhand. They all agreed except Sir John Falstaff. 

Falstaff offers an extremely risky military strategy. He believes it will rain, and if it does then the men could gain the advantage by wearing light armor. But they will have to lead with a small heavily armored division as a decoy to hide their intentions. Then, assuming the Dauphin would commit the bulk of his forces, the light infantry would then have to fight in the mud. The hope here is that their advantage in maneuverability would outweigh the French advantage in numbers. 

Consequence: Historically we know that King Henry V did not back down and ultimately won the battle of Agincourt. But he made his decision not knowing what the result would be. As for us, we can easily simulate the risks that he took by deciding what the odds are and then rolling some dice. If you have 10 sided physical dice like I do then that’s great, but if not then you can search for “random number generator” on google. 

Now first you must decide whether to face the dauphin in battle using a traditional approach, or whether to employ Sir John Fallstaff’s strategy. The dauphin has you outnumbered five to one, which is pretty terrible odds, so I’m going to assume that you would want to employ Falstaff’s strategy. 

He believes it will rain over the course of the night or in the morning because his injured knee is aching. So let’s assume there is a 75% chance of precipitation according to Falstaff’s intuitive yet reliable form of homeopathic meteorology. 

A 75% chance of success would be close to any roll of 3 or above on a six-sided dice (roll 1 6D => 3) . Shaun rolls a 6-sided dice and we roll a 4.  This is a success!

Unintended Consequences

There’s only one problem. As is often the case our decision has inevitably resulted in an unforeseen consequence. This plan requires that a small but heavily armed front line operate as a decoy. This small force will have to take on the full brunt of the French army’s attack and will likely have to fight from beginning to end putting every one of these soldiers at extreme risk. 

Sir John Falstaff, the only advisor you really trust, has volunteered to lead these men into battle himself. This strategy was his idea after all, and these men might not attempt to hold their ground if an officer isn’t willing to lead them in battle. You hate to see your friend take this risk, but it’s hard to refute his logic. 

The Final Dice Roll

Now is the moment of truth. It may be raining, but now you need the dauphin to fall for your trap by committing the bulk of his troops. For this we will roll a dice to see how much or how little he commits his troops once he initially starts winning.

Shaun rolls two six-sided dice and we roll a seven. Since that is a fairly high result we’ll interpret this as the dauphin taking the bait and committing his troops to battle. You then launch your ambush of light infantry who are easily able to out maneuver the dauphin’s heavily armored soldiers. 

The Final Results

Both sides take heavy casualties, but ultimately the dauphin has no choice but to surrender. Insulted, embarrassed, and humiliated he pulls out his sword to fight you in a duel. But the heir to the French throne’s heavy armor makes it impossible for dauphin to find footing in the mud. He is easily killed which leaves France without an heir to the throne. 

Congratulations! You now have all the leverage and may force the King of France to surrender his throne. 

Now that the battle is over the king is able to assess his wins and losses. As the king rummages through remains of the battlefield he sees that the casualties have been heavy on both sides. Finally we see our old friend, Sir John Falstaff. It was his strategy that brought us through this most difficult moment, and his sacrifice that pulled it off. Despite all his efforts both behind closed doors, and in public to present himself as a respectable ruler, King Henry V cried on the battlefield in front of his men when he found the body of Sir John Falstaff. It is lonely to be the leader and the burden is heavy. The crown has cost him the life of his one and only trusted friend. 

A tragically happy ending

If you have not seen the film, the King, on Netflix, then I highly recommend you watch it. Because despite King Henry’s tremendous success as a young leader, there’s a great scene at the end which is featured in the trailer. 

In it, princess Catherine asks him. “Do you feel a sense of accomplishment?”

King Henry, having just won the kingdom of France for himself, is shocked by the implied insult of the question and responds, “In what regard?”

To his shock she responds, “In any regard?”

She then goes on to tell him that everything he had assumed about the king of France, the dauphin, all of the advice that had been given by his advisors, had all been false! There is a crowd of English subjects all shouting his name with pride outside, and he just realized he was duped. 

From the beginning of the movie he had set out with all of his will to be a wise king. He tried to avoid the faults of his father who lived in constant suspicion of his allies. He thought he could be different from his father who was constantly at war. He spent his youth away from the court so that he would not be misled and manipulated by flatterers. Determined to lead a peaceful reign he realized at that moment that he had in fact become exactly what he had set out not to do. It’s such an humbling experience. I apologize if this is somewhat of a spoiler, but you really must see the film for yourself to truly experience just how hard it is to be a wise leader. 

Further Epic Reading

If you like these kind of stories, I also recommend reading about the united kingdom of Saul, David, and Solomon as depicted in the first and second books of Samuel in the Bible. You can also read about Admiral Yi Sun-shin, one of the most successful military leaders in all the world from South Korea. Through these stories we can see just how treacherous the path to success is. 

Next Lesson

Next week we will discuss how to take a great story from history or literature, and turn it into an engaging game-based lesson like we did today’s lesson. To read more about game based learning, or to check out some of my educational games, feel free to visit www.BestClassEver.org