Baron rouge
reference your complaints of French atrocities what about the glorious British Empire ?
I’ve not claimed that we (the English) are the only chivalrous nation and that we have not been guilty of atrocities of our own. In my post number 74 above I pointed out the use of the misericordias by the English to despatch the enemy wounded as they lay helpless on the battlefield at Crecy. I also mentioned the butchery by the redcoats of the wounded Jacobites at Culloden in 1746 — there are many other examples. The Mau Mau troubles in Kenya in the 1950’s comes to mind. We did terrible things there which is probably why the National Archives at Kew still keep closed (not for public viewing) many files concerned with the Mau Mau uprising, which under the thirty-year rule would have been released to public scrutiny way back in the 1980’s.
Warfare is a messy, horrible business and was especially so in medieval times. Wounded were left where they fell on the battlefield. The victors plundered the wounded, sparing only those that seemed worth a ransom, the remainder were despatched with a blow to the head, a bayonet through the guts, or a stiletto through the eye into the brain. Then there were no stretcher bearers to take you away to hospital to dress your wounds and make you better.
Atrocities by the victors against the losers have been part of warfare since time began regardless of nationality.
We can learn from history how past generations thought and acted and how they solved their problems, but at the end of the day and after all these years does it really matter who won and who lost and who did what to whom and why? - it's no more than historical water under the bridge.