When I say, as I have said with regard both to Crécy and to Poitiers--though it is truer of Crécy than of Poitiers--that the number of combatants whom contemporaries recognised as such was far less than the total numbers of a force, I was pointing out that, by our method of reckoning numbers, it would be foolish to count Edward III.'s army in 1346 as only 24,000, or the Black Prince's ten years later as only 7000. The actual number of males upon the march who had to be fed and could be seen standing upon the field was far larger. But, on the other hand, the value for fighting purposes of what I may call the domestics was very varied. Some of those who served the wealthiest of the men-at-arms were themselves gentry. They were youths who would later be fully armed themselves. They rode. They had a sword; they could not be denied combat. Even their inferiors were of value in a defensive position, however useless for offensive purposes. When we hear of A making a stand against B though B was "three times as strong" as A, we must remember that this means only that the counting combating units on B's side were three times A's. If A was holding a defensive position against B, B would only attack with his actual fighting units, whereas A could present a dense mass of humanity much more than a third of B, certainly two-thirds of B, and sometimes the equal of B, to resist him, though only one-third should be properly armed. While, on the other hand, if B should fail in the attack and break, the number of those cut down and captured in the pursuit by the victorious A would be very much greater than the fighting units which B had brought against A at the beginning of the combat. All the followers and domestics of A's army would be involved in the catastrophe, and that is what accounts for the enormous numbers of casualties which one gets after any decisive overthrow of one party by the other, especially of a large force against a small one. It is this feature which accounts for the almost legendary figures following Crécy and Poitiers.